


Moving Forward

by loOkMA_iTyPeLiKeDiS



Series: Aftermath [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (let's make this a tag y'all lmao), Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Healing, Lance (Voltron) is Cut, MAJOR S8 SPOILERS, Moving On, Nonsensical Science, Post-Canon Fix-It, Slow Burn, Unresolved Sexual Tension, but mostly plot driven, farm au, kind of, pidge tries to do the impossible, soft angst, some smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2019-09-20 03:49:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 66,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17015127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loOkMA_iTyPeLiKeDiS/pseuds/loOkMA_iTyPeLiKeDiS
Summary: Lance was broken.And she would do anything to wipe away that dead look in his tired, hollow gaze.Even if it seems nearly impossible.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE: just to preface this, I haven’t watched s8 but my friend gave me a spoiler about allura so i’m actually gonna watch it in feb now lol ^^;; im not tryna cry during my holiday break
> 
> (i don't particularly like farmer!lance, but i'm not gonna lie... it made me want to write a scene of plance fucking in a barn so this story was born~)
> 
> context for lance’s current state of mind is in 'all of him', but you don’t need to read it to understand this story. also probably won’t end up fully canon compliant because I know nothing about s8, ages, timeline, locations, etc

“Look, I’ll try to get the prototype completed before you show some simulations to investors, but the design is going to be crude. So if you want a proper product, I’ll need another week. I’ll email you the schematics in the morning. Thanks. Bye.”

Pidge dropped her desk phone back on the receiver to end the call and sighed heavily as she rubbed her face with both hands. She was barely afforded two seconds of rest when her pager beeped, reminding her of a meeting with the director of the lab regarding her progress on project C-420.

“Great… looks like it’ll be another sleepless night.”

Dealing with governments was a nightmare. She understood they had their work cut out for them to unify their nations again and bring order and peace to civilisation, but sometimes it felt like every last bit of life from the scientists and engineers were being squeezed out of them. Every day, Pidge had to keep reminding herself that she was doing this to help people on Earth and even in the universe because she was starting to feel like a disposable tool.

From medicine to first aid to travel to transportation to household appliances to nature, they were constantly making new tech to advance Earth back to a semi-coherent state. It was slow-going and very intensive and she rarely had enough rest but three years of ceaseless work had boosted the planet’s recovery. In another half a year or so, they were projected to return to where they’d been before Sendak had even occupied Earth.

Pidge dropped her father and mother a text letting them know she wouldn’t be coming home for dinner although she suspected her father was in a similar boat.

“Better get to work then…” she muttered as she booted her holographic projector to review designs once again.

She shucked off her lab coat and stretched her arms high above her head, relishing in the blast of cold air hitting her overheated skin. Wearing a sleeveless top to work wasn’t ideal, but this summer was stifling for some reason. Her office was getting kind of stuffy so in about two hours or so she’d leave for some fresh air.

Relief efforts, progress, and reconstruction were going great, and though slow, the world was healing from the battle scars of the Galra occupation. Of course, nothing would ever truly be the same, and the devastation would never be forgotten, but they had made some impressive strides with all Garrison bases around the world working tirelessly to use their resources to get Earth back on its feet.

For three years she’d been endlessly making and working on tech with different teams, sacrificing most of her social life or romance in favour of delving herself fully into her work. To be honest, the latter point didn’t bother her much. She’d had a couple dates here and there and a few notable hook ups during her slightly rebellious college aged years. But it wasn’t like she was interested in anyone anyway.

Or anymore, rather, considering the one guy she’d ever liked romantically was forever devoted to his dead girlfriend.

A familiar ache filled her chest at the thought of Allura. The heart and soul of Team Voltron and their saviour. She’d been important to her. The older sister she’d never had and they had just started growing close. Losing her was still hard for Pidge to think about sometimes. Allura’s sacrifice had been Pidge’s primary motivation in putting her all into aiding as many people as she could, regardless of whether it was at the cost of her own sanity. Allura gave and gave and gave and never took anything for herself right down to her last few moments, so this was the least Pidge could do.

Keith had a similar sentiment, which was why she knew he was running himself ragged providing support and relief aid to not only people on Earth but around the universe.

And Allura’s sacrifice was why Lance had decided to devote himself to his lost love for the rest of his life.

Allura had taught them a lot about selfless love towards humanity. And while Pidge would never be able to emulate the same beautiful spirit of her fallen sister, she could damn well try.

A knock on her door broke her out of her thoughts and she frowned, wondering who needed to talk to her this late in the evening. Her meeting was a conference call and most people in the lab had called it quits for the night. Besides, she wasn’t really feeling being disturbed right now. She waited, thinking maybe they might leave her be if she didn’t respond.

“C’mon, Pidge.” Hunk’s voice rang out through the door. “I know you’re in there. And I’ve brought you some gifts.”

She unlocked the door from the button under her desk. “It’s going to have to be quick, Hunk. My meeting is soon.”

Hunk walked in triumphantly and held up a greasy brown bag with oil stains along the side. The smell of food drifted through her nose and her stomach let out a weak growl when she realised it was something to eat.

“So when did you return to Earth?” she asked, trying not to show her eagerness when Hunk crossed her office and plopped down on the chair across from her desk. “And also might I say I’m grateful for you continuing the ‘Hunk brings a tired engineer food’ series.”

Hunk laughed a bit and pushed the bag between them. “I came in yesterday. I’m heading out to see my family tomorrow.”

“So what intense concoction do you have for me to eat this time?” She rose a playful brow. “Minced liver of some space creature? A dish with hair as a garnish? Ground up teeth?”

“I’ll have you know that some planets consider those a delicacy, you uncultured swine,” Hunk responded with a huff as he crossed his arms in front of his chest, though the teasing look in his eyes told her there was no bite to his statement. “But nah. Brought good old burgers and fries. That place we never got to go to back when we were cadets reopened apparently.”

Pidge hummed as she opened up the bag and began pulling out the carton of fries and the burgers Hunk had ordered. She didn’t intend to respond to his statement. She didn’t like talking about the past much. It tended to well up that melancholy in her chest from everything that they’d lost. Their lives had wildly changed and she honestly didn’t know if it was for the better or not.

The mouthwatering scent of the food travelled up her nose as she pulled out the last of the items and spread them out on her desk. She instantly recognised which was her burger because for some reason, Hunk had drawn one of her little hacker symbols on the wrapper.

(Badly drawn, but it was a valiant effort).

She smiled softly. “Thanks for always looking out for me, Hunk.”

She couldn’t really pinpoint when this ritual had started, but now whenever he returned to Earth he visited her first and they usually made a point to have dinner or brunch together to keep up.

“Yeah, anytime. I got the works with pickled jalapenos for you. But I hope you’re not against beef or something because of Kaltenecker.”

She gave him a weird look as she licked her fingers of some delicious salt residue from the fries. “Why would I be?”

Hunk paused halfway in unwrapping his own burger. “…Because she’s your child?”

“Lance has had full custody for a while now.” Pidge pulled back the aluminium wrapping and took a huge bite of her burger. “And I haven’t seen her in years to be honest. I doubt she would consider me her mother anymore.”

Pidge was only half joking. But seriously, she’d been so preoccupied with her own stuff that little by little the wellbeing of the cow had fallen to Lance. And once he’d begun his relationship with Allura, Pidge just kind of felt it wasn’t her place to be “mommy” anymore. She supposed it was bred from the same reason why she felt she no longer had a place by Lance’s side.

“Don’t you think she misses you?”

“She’s a cow, Hunk. She probably doesn’t care, but if it makes you feel better, I’ll visit her one day.”

Maybe. The thing about that would be that she would have to go visit Lance on his farm and she still had reservations about that. From what she knew of it, he had a gorgeous field of juniberries he frequented quite a bit where he often meditated and tried to connect with Allura’s spirit. She was definitely not bothered by Lance’s relationship with Allura anymore, but seeing him so downtrodden, with tired eyes and a not quite smile was a hard pass for her.

“You’ve been actively working and aiding in the reconstruction of Earth, Pidge. If anyone deserves a vacation, it’s you.”

“You’re right.” She ran a hand through her tangled hair with a sigh, pulling her long bang back and then watching it flop back on her forehead. “But we’ve got a bit of a potential crisis rising so I’m kind of needed. This disease is like the new rabies.”

Hunk gestured to the holographic 3D projection of her prototype that had materialised on her work station by the wall and was rotating slowly. “It looks like the space caterpillars.”

“Yeah.” She smiled fondly, taking a sip from her water bottle to clear her mouth from some of the excess salt. “A lot of my designs have been modelled after the things we saw in space. An homage, if you will.”

There were tons of people who didn’t particularly like the design though. The nanotech she’d been working on was made to detect diseases bred from changes in DNA, infiltrate, and remotely defeat the toxins without causing ample damage. There were a lot of issues and fine details that had to be worked out, but the fact that it looked like a bug bothered them more than the actual coding that could potentially wreak havoc in an organism’s cells.

“I can’t believe I can claim that one of my best friends is _the_ Katie Holt. And I get the first look at her new inventions?” He observed the blueprints in interest. “This is for the cure to Purple Flu, right?”

She nodded. “We’re not making any huge strides, but baby steps.”

For months now, an outbreak of some strange new disease had made itself known in parts of Northern France. It was some sort of leftover Galra virus mingling in with the DNA of humans and causing base deformities that were leading to a deletion which caused a fatal warping of certain genes. They’d begun to call it Purple Flu because it turned the victim’s skin fully purple before they began to exhibit extremely high temperatures and projectile vomiting. The incubation period could be anywhere from days to weeks since no symptoms of infection manifested until the purple skin showed up. They needed to discover a way to identify the disease before the colour change.

Because once the human’s colour changed, death was guaranteed in roughly 72 hours.

Pidge was working hard with some other leading scientists and engineers in medical tech to create a cure and nip the disease in the bud before it spread to other regions in the world, but it wasn’t easy going. The infected blood couldn’t be used to eventually make a vaccination because of the destruction of the DNA. They’d considered half Galran individuals and were currently testing the blood of Keith and Acxa to see if they could make something from that. Results and testing wouldn’t be ready for a while though. They simply lacked the tech to make the process faster, so Pidge had been trying an alternative with nanotech that could attack directly without the need for the injection.

When she finished explaining all that she was focusing on for her next steps, Hunk was staring at her in concern.

“…I stand by my first point. You work too hard,” Hunk commented decisively. “Take some time off and go see your cow. I heard Lance’s farm is spectacular this time of year. Make it a whole vacation. And if you’re hesitant to reach out to Lance directly, then your cow makes the perfect excuse to visit.”

“I work a normal amount. And besides, I have no time to take a vacation when there’s so much more I could be doing.” Pidge argued. “But speaking of visiting, you need to come to Earth more often. I miss you. I miss everyone. Haven’t seen people in a while.”

“I miss all of us too…” Hunk popped a couple of fries in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully with a far off look on his face. “Yearly anniversaries to meet as a group aren’t enough. Although, what’s your excuse? You could visit Lance anytime you wanted, you know?”

“I’m busy.” When Hunk gave her an unimpressed look, she rolled her eyes in exasperation. “And there’s partial fear, whatever. Seeing Lance so… so…”

“Depressed?” Hunk supplied.

Pidge nodded, nibbling on a pickle she’d pulled out from under the bun. “And subdued and tired and clearly still grieving is hard to deal with. He used to be so happy. I barely recognise him anymore.”

The last time they’d seen Lance, he’d been fake smiling and making casual jokes, but his gaze was always hollow and empty, and it broke Pidge’s heart to see him that way. He was broken, missing a piece of himself and while Pidge understood his anguish, she didn’t want to see him live the rest of his life forever a shell of his former self.

She couldn’t help but feel like that wasn’t supposed to be who _Lance_ became. She didn’t believe for a second that he had found true peace. How could he when he was reminded each day of how horribly he’d lost Allura?

Back when she’d been a naïve 15 year old, when she’d envisioned all of their futures post war, she had imagined hanging out with Lance and playing video games all the time. And yeah, maybe she’d assumed they would be married with kids or something, but she’d long gotten over that dumb fantasy when she realised she’d never be able to be with Lance.

She’d mostly somewhat moved on when she realised there would never be room in his heart for her when he was so deeply in love with Allura. And she was okay with that for the most part. She’d missed her chance so she’d given up.

But she just wished she could see Lance smile one more time. His wide, infectious easy grins and vibrant blue eyes were some of his best features and he’d lost them both. She just wished he could find some semblance of happiness because she couldn’t help but feel that the way he was leading his life was unhealthy. She was pretty sure that was her biased perception, but it seemed to her like he was trapped in a neverending loop of grief.

Hunk pointed a fry at her. “You used to never be able to articulate your feelings. You’re not much of a robot anymore. I’m proud of you. You _and_ Keith have matured.”

She rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “Yeah, yeah. I’m growing up. I made friends. I’ve learned. I get it.”

“So maybe instead of telling me about your worries for Lance all the time, you should use your newfound maturity and tell him. In person.”

Hunk gave her a serious, poignant look. Pidge wrinkled her nose at him as she took a large bite of the burger.

“Don’t give me that look. I’m just saying clearly you have a lot you’ve held back from saying to him and maybe he needs to hear it from someone who he’s close to. Was close to.” Hunk looked upset. “I mean, you were probably his best friend at some point, Pidge, and maybe that’s what he needs right now. An active friend to help him through his healing. You’re the only one readily available.”

“I don’t know…” She set down the burger and sighed. She was starting to feel sick to her stomach thinking about Lance’s melancholy. “I feel like he’s stuck in this vicious cycle of mourning, but it’s not really any of my business. He lost the woman he was in love with because she wanted to save us. And trying to stop her would have disrespected her. I have no doubt he blames himself or is probably thinking he is responsible. How do you heal from something like that? I want to do something for Lance, but I don’t think there’s anything I can do to make him happy again.”

Hunk nodded solemnly as he stared down at the fry he was twirling in his fingertips. “Short of bringing Allura back to life, I guess.”

“Right, which is completely not…” Pidge tapered off, brows furrowing as her gaze drifted to a photo she kept on her desk. The actual photo wasn’t anything abnormal; just their usual commemoration photo in front of Allura’s statue. This one in particular had Kosmo photobombing though. He’d poofed in at just the right moment. “…possible?”

Kosmo.

The wolf himself was odd because he could teleport, but she’d noticed a while ago that in battle, he seemed to actively teleport himself at very convenient locations that would give him just about enough time to get him an advantage or at just the right moment to dodge. She’d always been curious what Kosmo was travelling through and how he was doing it. Not to mention his poofs sometimes left an odd residue in the air that Pidge had always been interested in studying. Her theory was that Kosmo had the ability to move through planes of time and space with no consequences.

All of time and space could be manipulated with enough quintessence. So if she could find a way to build tech to use quintessence to open a small rift in time and combined it properly with a stable medium for travel like Kosmo, she could theoretically open up time and bring a past Allura of their reality back to the present with no consequences, right?

“Pidge? _Pidge_.” Hunk waved his hand in front of her face. “Earth to Pidge.”

“Holy shit, Hunk…” Pidge breathed, her heartrate picking up. “I’m gonna bring Allura back to life.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> still hesitant to watch s8 so sorry if huge parts don’t follow canon but i prefer to do my own thing anyway
> 
> also merci beaucoup to hailqiqi for letting me use her hc that the farm is in cuba and belongs to lance’s grandpa

_“Pidge… I think working so much has made you just a little tired. And I highly— **highly** —recommend you take time off.”_

Those had been Hunk’s ultimate parting words when he’d had to take off to finish up the rest of his visitations a couple days ago.

And honestly, Pidge was starting to believe it was true.

Pidge could admit when the idea of reviving the princess had first sprung up in her head, she hadn’t given much in depth thought as to how she could bring Allura back. The broad idea had seemed feasible at the time, but her logic was missing a lot of key points.

For one, just building a piece of tech capable of what she hoped to accomplish would take time just to make it stable. And while she was still here at work, she wouldn’t have the time to accomplish that as long as people continued to call and request certain projects. She was a techie for hire, so to speak. As long as she had other contracts to work on, she would never have the time to really delve into her plans.

So she honestly hadn’t blamed Hunk for the look he’d given her as if she was out of her mind. Or her father, when she’d asked him if it would be possible to bring someone back from the past in the same reality without collapsing all of space and time and causing a major explosion. She’d been doing nonstop research for days, and if she had to read another article about singularities and the instability of time she was going to destroy her laptop.

The other thing she’d possibly considered was finding a deceased Allura from another reality and somehow imbuing the spirit of their lost one in the body, but that was way more creepy than she wanted, not to mention bordering on necromancy and where the hell would she even find Allura’s spirit to transfer in the body?

That was the hardest part.

Allura was a spiritual entity now, assimilated entirely with space all around them. If Pidge focused, she could feel her presence too. There was no way to bring her back from being sprinkled all around the universe like that, but time was a crazy thing. And she knew there were neverending loops in time that continued on and on and on. Which meant there had to be multiple physical Alluras of their reality floating in other parts of time. But accessing her was going to be hard.

She had to make sure she didn’t accidentally destroy linear time. But that was exactly what she couldn’t figure out. In order to prevent that, she would need some form of pure energy or a source of natural energy or something, but she wasn’t sure how that would work or where to get it from. Quintessence would never be enough. And this wasn’t her area of expertise.

And the kicker?

The only person she’d ever seen successfully traverse, bend, and break the rules of time and space like that before… was Allura.

“Argh, I’m so sick of this!” Pidge swiped her hand across the chalkboard with her deadend calculations and drawings and what she’d started mapping out days ago.

She smudged the chalk even more when she leaned her forehead against the board, breathing in and out steadily to calm down. All this knowledge in her brain and she couldn’t even come up with a solution? She was a three time published engineer, had gotten to work with so many influential, award-winning scientists, and had taken so many seminars and courses to get her qualifications. One would think there would be at least one answer stored in all her knowledge.

This was so fucking hard and she _hated_ not being able to figure stuff out. She was a tech and engineering person. She didn’t really _do_ math physics and fractals and all that crazy time stuff. It made her brain hurt.

But she couldn’t give up.

Lance’s happiness depended on this.

Pidge paced around her cluttered idea lab, rubbing her chin as she tried to start from the drawing board. She suspected she needed Kosmo, and she knew a mirror reality would be needed if she wanted to find the same Allura. And the third piece was a natural source of energy similar to the powers Allura had.

Maybe the problem was that she had too much going on at once. She glanced around the room, taking note of all the half-finished projects and the failed designs, bits and scraps of ideas hanging off of shelves and walls, wild calculations drawn literally _everywhere_ with no semblance of order.

It was chaos in here. No wonder her mind was a mess. She couldn’t think clearly in an environment where so many things were occupying and taking her attention at once.

 _A vacation somewhere peaceful could fix that_.

Hunk’s suggestion came back to the front of her mind again and she sighed. Maybe he was right. Maybe she could take the time off and see Lance at the farm. Plus, he _was_ the most connected to Allura. Being near him might get her some inspiration to help her figure out the most pressing difficulties to her problem.

She sat on the edge of one of her lab tables, staring at the jumbled calculations in front of her. “Joyce, when was my last vacation?”

Her AI receptionist laughed derisively, her cackling ringing out in the lab and grinding Pidge’s nerves. _“Does not compute.”_

“I’m serious.” Pidge pinched the bridge of her nose. She didn’t appreciate the constant jokes that she was a workaholic. Yes, she was usually locked away in her office or lab, but she regularly had a lot of work to get done. “Open up my calendar and tell me.”

_“Well… I don’t know if you consider dates vacations, but you were on a date for a three day weekend once where I’m pretty sure you got your back blown out—”_

“ _Joyce_. Stay focused.”

 _“All I’m saying is you had a limp, Miss H,”_ Joyce concluded, chuckling to herself _. “Anyway, that was two years ago in March. Twenty-seven months was your last break basically. And that wasn’t technically a vacation since the labs were closed anyway. You’re long overdue.”_

“And my PTO?”

_“C’mon, boss lady. You only use one per year for your reunion. You have pretty much all your PTO accrued. And no direct meetings for the next two months. The prototype design is wanted next week, but honestly any one of your coworkers, assistants, or interns can explain the functions. You’ve trained them well. So, in conclusion, you can take a two month vacation and still have enough PTO to take the holidays off in December.”_

Had she really been working that much?

“You know what… maybe another vacation is in order. But only for two weeks.”

_“Please do at least a month. You work too hard and from what I’ve been hearing all evening you’re on the verge of a mental breakdown.”_

“So I’ve heard…” Pidge sighed, resigning her argument. “Fine. Let’s start with a month. If I need more time, I’ll contact you again, but this is not just a random vacation, okay? I have a project that I’ll be working on in the meantime that I have to get finished sooner rather than later.”

_“Should I help you organise a schedule to keep track of your work?”_

“No… this one is… well, it’s classified.” She wasn’t really planning on telling anyone yet. Maybe just show up dramatically one day with Allura and make everyone wig out. But that was only if she could figure out the basic way to make her plan work. “I don’t want anyone to know I even have a secret project, okay?”

_“Understood. I can’t believe I’ve lived to see my workaholic boss finally take her first vacation! I’m so proud of you.”_

Pidge shook her head in exasperation with a fond smile. “You’re an AI. You’re not technically alive.”

_“Still. This is so utterly exciting. Where to?”_

“McClain Farm.”

 _“Seriously? A whole month of vacation to go to a farm?”_ From the soft whirring noise filling the space, Pidge knew she was scanning databases on the internet to get more information about it _. “Run by one Alberto McClain with his family. Rolling pastures, ample farmland, and cows and livestock. A small garden of pretty alien flowers with apparent healing and comfort capabilities. Yikes. This place sounds kind of boring plus you have allergies. What could possibly be so great about… Ohhh. I see. Tall, dark, and lean, huh? The owner’s super fuckable grandson. Fulfilling a hot farmer fantasy like in a harlequin romance novel? I approve.”_

“He was the red paladin of Voltron and he’s currently still in mourning over his deceased girlfriend, so no. It’s not like that.” Pidge spun her pen around her fingers. “An old friend. I’m going there for support.”

 _“That’s a shame about his girlfriend. That must be hard for him…”_ Joyce said, her tone softened with remorse now. _“But with looks like that, he could easily find himself a new lover. Can’t be more than twenty-five, right? He’s got his whole life ahead—”_

“He only wants her. But I do need to visit my friend, so months’ vacation. Set it up and send out any emails needed. I’ll need to rent a car when I’m there too.”

_“I’ll mark your proposed vacation days in the lab calendar and email your boss, but no. Your friend can drive you from the airport for two reasons. One: so you won’t try to escape and run at the first bit of difficulty or manure on your pants.”_

“Clearly you don’t know me.” Pidge rolled her eyes. “I’ve definitely had worse gunk get on me before in space. And quite frankly, that doesn’t freak me out.”

Joyce ignored her. _“And two: because you’re on **vacation**. You shouldn’t have to do anything like driving. Just pack a bag and let everyone else handle your needs. If he’s an upstanding guy, he would pick you up personally from the airport himself.”_

“Urgh, _fine_. No car then. Schedule my vacation starting Monday and only for thirty days.”

 _“Starting tomorrow and thirty days. Got it…”_ Joyce said absentmindedly, and the sound of typing filled the lab.

“ _Joyce_ ,” Pidge warned, glaring up at the ceiling, though she knew her assistant couldn’t see her.

_“Whoops. Already scheduled. Bought your tickets. Flight’s at sixteen hundred hours tomorrow. Sent out the email to your boss too. Guess it’s a done deal.”_

Pidge let out a slow breath, wishing she was real so Pidge could strangle this AI. She must have already typed the email and scheduled the vacation before Pidge had even confirmed with her.

_“You should get home and pack, Miss H. Oh and make sure to pack some sexy lingerie too and not those granny panties you always wear.”_

“They’re comfortable! And I told you I’m not visiting him to have some raunchy tryst on a farm. Nothing’s going to happen between us.” He was still hung up on Allura, and Pidge wasn’t even interested anymore. She snatched up her files and clipboard with the updates she’d checked on for projects closer to their finishing touches. “I’m leaving for the day since apparently I have only an evening and half a day to pack now. But when I get back from this trip, I’m reprogramming you entirely, you stupid mutinous AI!”

Joyce’s annoying cackles followed her all the way out the door.

It was Pidge’s fault for letting Matt program Joyce’s personality. She had a feeling he was just fucking with her, but the AI for her labs was seriously getting on her nerves sometimes. At least she’d been smart enough not to install the personal secretary in her office. She would never have any peace. Hunk thought Joyce was hilarious (and Pidge was pretty sure Joyce was in love with Hunk) but if Pidge could wring her neck, she would have done it ages ago. The only reason she still hadn’t reconstructed Joyce’s artificial brain was because she was actually a very reliable secretary.

(And though she’d never tell her, a great companion on long nights working until dawn).

Pidge stopped by her office to look over some last few things, tidy up quickly, and grab whatever she would need. To her surprise, her boss had already sent an approval for the month-long trip, even having the audacity to congratulate her for finally taking time off and acting obnoxiously like some proud uncle who watched his favourite niece grow up. Three other higher ups had also sent her emails with similar sentiments of joy regarding her vacation.

(And one of her coworkers even sent her a very furious email that she’d made her lose a high stakes bet).

Pidge liked where she worked, honestly, but the meddling she could really do without.

After stuffing some notes and a bit of small work to do for projects she was still fleshing out in her bag, she finally cut the lights entirely, made sure everything was turned off and automated, and left the office.

Her parents would probably be really surprised at her taking an impromptu trip like this, but then again, she wouldn’t be surprised if they took full advantage of her not being in the house for a while. Between her mother worrying about Pidge off in space and then the whole Sendak issues and the subsequent turmoil on Earth, her mom and dad hadn’t really had a chance to enjoy undivided time together without something going on or their kids being in the house.

They were long overdue for some private time too.

(Though just thinking about _that_ made her want to hurl…)

But Pidge needed a break from work and project Bring Allura Back would be the perfect thing to focus on. And just in time too. In roughly two months, it would be Lance’s birthday and that would be a great gift if she could bring back his lost love. That way, he could actually have a happy birthday for once instead of spending it moping.

By the time she got home, somehow her parents had also gotten wind of her sudden vacation and somehow, her mother had taken over for packing her clothes while her father took all her work and projects and hid them to make sure she wouldn’t try to bring some with her on her trip. She’d had to distract her parents to be able to squish some basic tools and some raw materials in her suitcase that she would need to be able to get started.

The last thing she did before heading to bed was send Lance a chat message letting him know she would be coming in the evening for a month long stay. She wasn’t really sure how to figure out what to say, but she chickened out at the last minute and ended up using the Kaltenecker excuse.

Besides. Telling Lance that she was going to try to do the impossible and revive his girlfriend seemed like a personal conversation they should have face to face one day.

Lance didn’t seem bothered in his response, and even offered to drive her from the airport before she could ask him. He seemed pleased enough that he would get to see her but left her a cryptic message to remember to bring a pair of work boots and sturdy jeans. And then made some joke about her having to earn her keep, which quite frankly did have Pidge hesitating for a few seconds.

“This is unbelievably bonkers…” she muttered, still reeling over the fact that literally a few hours ago, she’d been at work doing what she always did and now she was about to embark on a month long trip for something that wasn’t even a guarantee.

For all this effort, she really hoped something good came out of it.


	3. Chapter 3

“Before Hunk left for space, he told me you’re one of the engineers spearheading the tech efforts for a cure for Purple Flu.” Lance yawned, his eyes tearing up a bit in his fatigue as he leaned his head on the arm resting on the driver’s side window sill. “That’s impressive.”

“It’s a lot of work, but yeah. I’m hoping we can finally kill this DNA virus.” Pidge leaned back in the cracked leather seat, closing her eyes briefly. Her flight had been too exhausting with all the turbulence and the couple with the crying baby a few rows up from her. Her ears were still clogged up from the descent and whenever she tried to swallow, she heard a popping sound. “Next week our lab is running simulations on the processing of the nanotech. And if all goes well, we can advance to Stage Two and actually test it on some infected blood. It’s pretty exciting.”

“You sound like you’ve found your niche. Are you going to stick with med tech from now on?”

“Hmm… I dunno.” She kicked her feet up on top of the dashboard and rolled the seat back a little to get more comfortable. “Medical stuff is kind of interesting, but I still have this longing for space, you know? It’s like something that has been a part of my life for so long and I kind of still want to be out there doing space tech-y stuff. But since we need more biomedical engineers right now, I’m doing that. But I miss space.”

Lance didn’t respond, his gaze a little too focused on the road, even though the fact that they weren’t glazed over told her he wasn’t lost in thought.

“Thanks for picking me up, by the way. I wouldn’t have been able to take a nap on a crowded bus.”

“Yeah, no problem. Buses don’t come out past certain stops here anyway.”

And they fell into a somewhat terse silence. Pidge wracked her brain for conversation topics to bring up, but her mind was drawing a blank. She didn’t think it was time to tell him about her plan yet. She needed to figure out the main details before she told him otherwise it’d be like giving him false hope.

But the fact that she couldn’t even think of something to say spoke volumes of their vastly dwindled friendship. Even when she’d found him at the terminal, they’d only exchanged some polite pleasantries and then he’d pretty much clammed up, only piping up to ask her a question here and there as he led her to his truck. They hadn’t even hugged. And the obligatory small talk about work and their families made her want to puke. Once upon a time, they could make a conversation about nothing last for hours, mostly because Lance would never shut up.

Now it seemed like he thought talking was a chore.

Pidge glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes, taking in his tense shoulders and the tight grip he had on his steering wheel. It really said a lot about his loss of joy that his neutral expression now seemed so aggravated or displeased. He was giving off pretty intense vibes of fatigue and there seemed to be permanent bags under his eyes. And of course, she hated the dull look in his eyes when they used to sparkle.

All in all though, he still looked pretty good since the last time she’d seen him. His hair was in disarray, but it kind of added to his charm. She just wished he would smile more. Lance was cute, but the semi-scowls just seemed wrong on his face.

“Oh yeah, by the way, the central cooling system is kind of broken in our house,” Lance said, taking a turn off a main road and following what looked to be a neverending dusty beaten path in between rows and rows of corn. His gaze slid over to her and she very quickly closed her eyes again. “So it’s kind of hot. We have fans, but the best way to clear out that sticky air is to sleep with the windows open so I hope you don’t mind bugs.”

Pidge frowned and gave him a look. “If I recall correctly, weren’t you the one scared of bugs in the castle?”

“Hmm, doesn’t ring a bell.” His response was too chill and she definitely saw the impish smile forming on his lips.

“Okay, sure it doesn’t, noodle boy.”

Lance’s amused expression lasted the rest of the trip through the corn. They took several lefts and rights and other turns in the same looking place, passed another farm, went through some more corn again and at some point Pidge was certain they had made a full damn circle and ended up passing a place they’d already seen. By the time they’d finally reached the arch and pathway of his family farm, Pidge completely understood why bus drivers wouldn’t take her out here. They were guaranteed to get lost if they didn’t know the roads, especially since there was no lighting along the way, save for the truck’s headlights.

At least there were some light poles in places around the farm, but the natural light from the sun had vanished. She couldn’t really make out left from right, but Lance didn’t seem to have an issue with it at all, driving in the dark as if from a memory engrained. They passed fields of crops, carefully avoiding farmhands who were herding animals back to their barns for the night. From what she could make out, it didn’t seem like too gigantic of a farm. Small enough that she believed the upkeep probably wasn’t too taxing, but big enough that hired help was needed for it.

Lance drove around a chicken coop and past a barn and silo and past the juniberry flower field before coming to a stop in front of a quaint two story white farm house on a small hill. It was well worn with some slightly crooked shutters, some shingles missing from the roof, and the paint was chipped, but it looked cosy and comfortable. The porch had several wicker chairs and someone had left a guitar and a pipe resting by the open window of the kitchen.

“Home sweet home,” Lance said as he hopped out the truck. Pidge followed suit, her eyes trying to adjust to the darkness when he cut off the lights. Lance pulled out her suitcase and duffel bag from the back. “I think everyone is still working, so the house is pretty empty. My grandpa was out on the porch before, but he might have gone to bed. Anyway, enjoy the quiet while it lasts.”

Pidge spun around slowly, looking around at her environment, taking in the scent of livestock and the fresh air, if not mottled a bit by the subtle stench of manure. Still though, it was much preferable to all the rancid perfumes and colognes she was forced to smell on a daily basis. There was none of that mechanical, industrialised quality to the air and it filled her lungs nicely. It was kind of humid and just a little bit muggy and she wasn’t a fan of the cow smell mixing with the scent of salty ocean water and clinging to the air, but there was something truly relaxing about it. Something very peaceful and calm and she closed her eyes, tilting her head back dramatically as she took it in.

A gentle breeze blew past her, rustling the leaves, and for a moment, Pidge wondered if she’d felt fingertips skim her cheek. She snapped her gaze open in surprise, but Lance was far from her, on the porch trying to wrangle her heavy, giant bags and get the door open at the same time.

She shook off the weird moment and headed up the creaking porch steps. “I appreciate the chivalry, but you’re clearly struggling. Just let me carry my duffel bag.”

“And get a chancleta to the head from my grandma?” Lance gave her an amused look over his shoulder right as he got the door open. “Yeah, not happening.”

She walked with him inside, taking note of the homely farm house. Like the outside, the inside was well worn with dated furniture that had lost its lustre, homemade rugs, scratches on the scuffed hardwood floor, but the scent of cinnamon lingered in the air. It was hot in the house though, and Pidge tugged at her sweater, sweat already pooling on her skin and making the fabric stick. There was someone sleeping on the couch in the den, so Pidge made sure to walk more quietly so as not to wake them up.

Lance yawned again as he took her up the stairs to the second level and she only stopped observing the photos on the wall because he had stopped briefly and she almost ran into his back.

“You seem super tired, Lance,” Pidge noted.

“I have to get up before dawn every day. It’s no big deal.” He waved off her concern like it didn’t matter. Pidge wrinkled her nose, but didn’t say anything to that. She followed him down the landing to rooms farther down the hall. “We have two bedrooms available now since Rachel left to go live with her boyfriend. And Sylvio’s at that summer training programme at the Garrison, so he’s not here either. So are you more interested in rockets or guys not wearing shirts?”

“Take a wild guess…” she drawled.

“Shirtless guys it is,” Lance responded with a small smile.

She scoffed at his dumb joke. He took her to a room at the end of the hall. It was painted dark blue and fresh sheets and blankets and towels had been set on the bottom corner of the bed.

It reminded her of Matt’s room when they were growing up. Sticky stars on the ceiling, model rockets littering every conceivable flat surface, astronaut pictures. Except the astronaut in question… was _her_. It was a promotional pic she remembered taking several years ago. It had been a collectible series for each of the paladins that had been sold to raise money for reconstruction efforts. She was posing ridiculously, looking into the distance like some hero with a determined look on her face and standing next to Green. Her heart gave a soft twinge of sadness at the thought. She missed organising her thoughts with Green whenever she needed to.

“Well. This is awkward.” She sighed and walked into the room, attempting to flick on the light switch several times, but it didn’t work. She walked over to the lamp on the desk and thankfully, it turned on. “I’m not sure how I feel about having to look at myself every day.”

“Yeah, he’s had a crush on you ever since you gave some seminar at the Garrison on how to create cloaking mechanisms.” Lance set her suitcase and duffel bag by the bookshelf against the wall. He straightened up with a soft groan as he stretched out his back. “Either that or it’s just because his favourite colour is green.”

Pidge chuckled to herself as she slipped her feet out of her canvas sneakers. This must have been what it was like for Shiro when Garrison students started crushing on him whenever he guest lectured.

“I have to go to town tomorrow to pick up some more lightbulbs.” He crossed his arms in front of his chest, leaning against the doorway and watching her as she tossed her small backpack on the ground and plopped tiredly onto the bed. “So welcome to McClain Farm. First impressions?”

“It’s quaint and super chill. Definitely a nice break from my general turmoil.” But not somewhere she would want to be super long term. She needed adventure and she would get restless here. To be honest, she wasn’t sure how Lance himself wasn’t restless, considering how much he loved to seek adventure too. Well, used to. “Breathing is a lot better, but there’s a lot of plants here. I’m glad I brought my industrial strength allergy meds.”

“Yeah, I remember your allergies. I figured that’s why you’ve never come to visit the farm.” His tone was hard to decipher, and she pasted a fake smile on her face when she turned to him.

She hadn’t come the first year after he’d moved back to Cuba because she’d been dealing with forgetting her own feelings so it was out of the question to be around him. She had to protect her own heart too. And after that, Lance just kept getting more and more morose while she’d gotten busier and busier, so she’d just resigned herself to the fact that she’d probably only see him when they met up as a whole group.

“You know me and pollen.”

“Sure. Since pollen affects year round.” She was still unable to tell what kind of tone he was adopting, but she wondered if she was mistaken about the sarcastic edge to his voice. “Makes sense.”

“But you know, I sucked it up and came.”

“Right, right.” He nodded slowly. “Because you really wanted to visit Kaltenecker. For a month.”

He seemed a little cranky if you asked her, but then again maybe that was his default now. Pidge didn’t respond, though they had an odd stare down for a few seconds with Lance looking apathetic and Pidge narrowing her eyes at him.

Was he picking a fight with her? It was hard to tell.

Lance sighed deeply though and broke eye contact as he turned around. “Anyway, it’s good to see you. Fridge is fully stocked so feel free to take anything you need. We ate dinner a while ago, but if you want me to make you something, just let me know. Wifi is also pretty spotty and slow so if you want better service, you kind of have to stand on the roof.”

“Alright.”

“I’ll give you a tour of the place tomorrow morning, yeah?” Lance yawned again, shoulders slumping as he stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Sorry for not having time to tonight. I have to go finish cutting up and baling the hay.”

“Don’t worry about it. Sounds like you’re pretty busy. Anyway, I’ve had a long trip, so I’m probably going to bed.”

“Shower’s two doors down. And I’ll be in the cattle barn if you need me. See you in the morning.”

“‘Night.”

She watched him trudge off with a frown worrying her brow. It was like he had no energy whatsoever.

But she shook her head of the thought and grabbed her duffel to find her toiletries. She got all her shower items together, stripped and grabbed a towel and in record time, was taking a lukewarm shower to wash off the grime during her travels and dirt on her ankles. The water pressure was just a little too soft, but then again, she’d tampered with her shower at home to exude the right beats on her skin.

She was in and out quickly because the last thing she wanted to do was possibly drain all their hot water, and she wrapped herself up in the towel as she headed back to the room. She dried herself off quickly and once she’d made sure no more beadlets of water were on her skin, she opened up her suitcase to find her pyjamas.

And subsequently froze.

“I’m gonna kill my mom…” Pidge grumbled, staring at some of the ridiculous things she’d made sure to shove in Pidge’s suitcase.

Was Joyce conspiring with her mother or something? What the hell was this shit?!

Silk nighties, not one pair of panties that actually covered her cheeks, lacy, useless bras. (Fuzzy pink handcuffs?!) Her clothes hadn’t been tampered with at all and there were simple work clothes and comfort outfits as well as comfortable underwear, but it still annoyed her. Most of her undergarments had been replaced and all her sleep clothes were now apparently seduction pieces.

She made a mental note to herself to video chat her mom sometime that week and really give her a piece of her mind.

She ended up slipping on a long baggy t-shirt that went to her thighs since it was just about the only suitable thing she could wear to sleep and then went to the windows to air out the room. It took some effort and the groaning of the wood made her think she was about to break it off its hinges, but thankfully, she managed to get it wide enough that she could lean her head out and feel the soft breeze. It still carried the scent of ocean water, but this time, she realised how refreshing it felt when the inside of the house was sticky with hot, unmoving air.

The view was nice too.

She could see most of the barns and stables as well as fields of crops. From her vantage point, she could see the horizon in the distance and she had a feeling this very view of sunsets from the house was probably what had made Lance become so entranced with them when he was younger.

She could also see the entire juniberry flower field. Pidge had heard that it was an open attraction on the farm for people to come and dwell in the mellow sense of calm the plants exuded. It looked empty now, so Pidge figured maybe she should head down there and pay her respects or something. Maybe she might be able to connect with Allura and say hi.

Pidge slipped her feet in her canvas sneakers, pulled on some shorts, and trudged her way out of the farm house, heading out the door and retracing the path that they’d taken to get back to the juniberry field. It was weird. Despite how dark it was in this particular area, the flowers seemed to shine, illuminating the space with a soft, ethereal glow. Pidge’s stomach flipped a bit the more she approached, her pulse picking up from the aura she was sensing.

It filled her heart and mind, and she could feel tension in her body roll away.

Much like the way Allura used to soothe them with her presence.

“I don’t know if you can hear me, but hey, Allura…” Pidge said, walking through the cobblestone path set up in the field with a soft smile. “I know you’ve been watching out for me in Arizona. So thanks. And I don’t know if I’m imagining your spirit around here or something, but I can _feel_ you and that’s pretty awesome. We all miss you. Lance especially. But I’m letting you know right now not to get too comfortable in the afterlife because I promise I am going to bring you back to life.”

The wind shifted and she could have sworn something touched her hand as if holding it, but whatever she’d been feeling disappeared seconds later when she suddenly heard a choked sound behind her.

“Wait, _what_?”

Pidge spun around, not expecting to see Lance chilling and sitting at the base of the tree on the other side of the tree. She hadn’t seen him. Only now he was staring at her wide eyed, halfway to his feet.

“Quiznak.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remember: most of the science is absolute nonsense

Pidge licked her lips slowly, wracking her brain for a way to get out of this mess somehow. Lance was still gaping at her, disbelief on his face.

“Pidge, just now… what did you just say?”

“I uh… umm, did you know the juniberries kind of glow in the dark? It’s pretty cool,” she started, but when his brows drew down and a muscle ticked in his jaw in irritation, she knew he wasn’t here for any deflections. “Lance… uh, what do you _think_ you heard?”

“You said you’re bringing Allura back to life, Pidge.”

Okay.

So he’d heard it all.

“Is… is that true?” Lance asked quietly, his voice coming out strained.

She nodded. “I’m trying to bring Allura back to life.”

It was like her admission sucker punched him in the gut or something because he practically sagged into himself with his exhale, leaning back heavily against the tree for support.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m… I don’t know.” He glanced up at her, his eyes shining with so much more emotion than she’d ever seen him show in the past few years. “Can we talk inside?”

She nodded and they made their way back to the farm house. Pidge walked a few paces behind Lance, staring at the tension in his back as they quickly headed back inside. He took her past the empty den straight to the kitchen. Pidge kept silent the whole time because he seemed so overwhelmed.

Lance took a kettle and set it on the stove with some water. For painstaking minutes while he waited for the water to boil, Pidge watched him let out a few sighs, take some soft shuddering breaths and rub his face with his hands multiple times. Pidge didn’t know what to say, so she just sat herself in a corner chair of the kitchen table and watched him. She couldn’t glean his current state. She would have thought his general reaction would be elation, but he wasn’t particularly giddy.

When the kettle screamed, he reached into a cupboard and pulled out a mug and then opened a drawer and took a small teaspoon. He rummaged around the pantry and procured a tea bag which he then placed in the cup and filled with hot water. He set the cup down in front of her.

Lance took the seat opposite her and then nudged the small sugar jar in the centre of the table towards her. “Hope you don’t mind chamomile. This is the only tea we have; we pretty much solely drink coffee, but I know you used to like it.”

“It’s fine,” Pidge responded quietly, scooping out some sugar and sprinkling it into her tea.

She took her time mixing the sugar with the liquid, her face staunchly on her drink as she tried to gather her thoughts in preparation to explain. This time, he watched her the whole time, a blank expression on his face as he bored a hole in her. It was _unnerving_. She really couldn’t tell at all how he felt about this revelation.

“So…” Lance started when the silence began to grow stifling, “can you run this by me one more time?”

“I was talking to Hunk about doing something to make you happy and how if we brought Allura back you’d be happy and the key to that I think is Kosmo. See, his poofing in and out of reality must utilise bending energy and quark matter somehow and we just need to figure out how he does that so that we can emulate the same situation.”

“What? Bending energy? _Quark_?” Lance looked completely confused. “Pidge, we’ve been over this before. Please speak plebeian English.”

“Sorry, my mind is racing. I’m talking about _time travel_ , Lance,” Pidge said emphatically. “We can’t physically go back in time in our reality, but negative time does exist. And in it, we can find Allura. _Our_ Allura.”

She half expected Lance to smile or laugh or cry or _something_ , but his expression hardly changed for the better. In fact, his brows furrowed and he stared at a random scratch on the table pensively. Almost disappointed, if she really thought about it.

Pidge rose a brow. “I would have thought you of all people would be happy about this.”

“I… I am, it’s just… I’ve tried, you know?” Lance swallowed hard, his hands clenching into fists. “Me and Coran both have. Especially him because it’s torn him up inside that he never got to say one last goodbye. We researched time travel shit too and tried our best to come up with some ideas, but we hit dead ends everywhere. I thought you were going to bring up something new, but…”

She hadn’t known that, but she supposed it made sense. “Why didn’t you mention to any of us that you were trying to bring her back? We would have supported you. I could have helped you guys long ago!”

“I didn’t tell anyone because I figured you all would think I was holding on too much or making my life more difficult or something. Coran desperately wants her back too, but the more we tried, the worse the heartache got every time we let ourselves get hope. And the longer we researched, the more we were making ourselves miserable. It’s not possible, Pidge.”

“It is. I’m positive. I mean, I haven’t worked out the details but I think I might be able to get the science down. I just need to convince Keith to let me experiment on Kosmo. Well, not _experiment_ , but observe and maybe track his motions. The only other thing I need is a source of pure energy. Something like Allura’s white lion magic that transferred Shiro’s soul back into his vessel.” She realised his eyes had gone glazed over, as if he was having some sort of epiphany in his mind. “Lance? You listening?”

“You know, when I died, she revived me with the power of the white lion.” He touched his cheek with a look of surprise. “I… I want to say when she gave me her mark, she imbued some of her magic in me. Or the lion. Or at least, I can feel it. I don’t know. So maybe I might be able to help with that? I always wondered what this gift she gave me was. I don’t know how to use it, but if I have some of the white lion in me, then maybe…”

Pidge barely heard what he’d said though because the first few words out of his mouth had rendered her immobile for a second.

“Wait a minute, what do you mean when you _died_ , Lance?”

He blinked, and then looked away from her with a slight wince. “It’s nothing. No big deal. It was when we were fixing that omega shield. I got hit by the radiation belt protecting Allura and she revived me.”

And somehow, Pidge knew exactly what he was talking about.

It was a far distant memory now, much like most of their missions as paladins, but there’d definitely been a moment in that mission when it felt like a link in the paladin bond had flickered off for a bit. She had been focused on her mission and snapping Shiro out of his sudden spazzing, so she didn’t pay it too much mind, but that lingering sense of dread and the fear clinging to her heart and the nauseous feeling in her stomach had remained until later, when the connection grew strong again.

And she knew now that must have been Lance.

“What the fuck _,_ Lance…” Pidge stared at him in shock. She could understand that that must have been a private moment and maybe that was why he kept it to himself, but the fact that he hadn’t let any of them know stung sharply in her ribs. They’d been close then. Did he not have any trust in her at all? “How could you keep that from us?”

“We had more pressing things to worry about at the time, besides—”

“ _No_ , Lance! You literally _died_ and not one of us ever had the chance to check on you in all this time because we didn’t know! Allura wasn’t the only one who cared about you, you know? You were an important part of our lives and you didn’t even consider the fact that we should have been told!”

He frowned. “Pidge, pipe down. I don’t want my family to know about it.”

“Don’t tell me to shut up!”

“Those words never even left my mouth!”

“You literally died!” Pidge hiss shouted, her throat constricting for a moment. “Not passed out or fainted, but _actually_ lost your life. And now you’re acting like it’s no big deal.”

She was at a complete loss for words of how he could possibly be so chill about dying.

“I did it to protect her. And it’s fine. I’m alive, aren’t I?” Lance said sharply. “Fat load of good that did because in the end, I failed anyway since she still ended up dying.”

“You know, Lance, there is a _big_ difference between being protective and being overly sacrificial! You can’t just disregard everything about your life and act like it has no worth or meaning. Especially if it’s for the sake of one person. That’s extremely—”

“What? That’s extremely _what_ , Pidge?” he near snapped, a brow raised in challenge. “You’ve got something to say to me about my life too? Because that’s just what I need right now. You shitting on me after everything that’s happened.”

Pidge took a deep breath and swallowed down her rising fury. Lance seemed to want to be stuck in his dismissive attitude about what happened to him regardless of what she said, and she could see the irritation mounting in his gaze. She had been gearing up to tell him how unhealthy she found his behaviour, but he was right. This was neither the time nor place to be talking about this.

This was about Allura.

She had to get back on track.

Pidge ran a hand through her hair. “You know what, fine. This isn’t the time. But I’m seriously not happy with what you just told me, Lance.”

It scared the shit out of her that he could be so apathetic about the fact that they could have lost him.

That _she_ could have lost him.

Lance gave her an odd look. “Why do you care? I mean, seriously, Pidge. You barely talked to me for years, never visited me, you rarely ask about the farm, you tell me nothing about your life. The only time I see you is when we do our group meets and the only time I even hear about you is when Hunk visits me or if something pops up online about another one of your articles or achievements. And now all of a sudden you want to pop back into my life for a month to _visit our cow_?”

Was that what he was mad at her about?

“I care because _you_ don’t seem to care about your own well-being at all!” she seethed. How could he think so little of himself? For years she’d cared so much about him, wanted him to be happy, and it was like he didn’t give two shits what happened to him. “Although I’m not surprised now that I think about it. I mean _look_ at you.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, and they glared at each other for a few seconds. “Can you just tell me about your time travelling plan? I’m not in the mood to argue with you right now, Pidge.”

She clammed up, pursing her lips, though she backed off. She didn’t come here to pick a fight or bring her grievances about his life up with him like this. This was exactly why she’d never said anything. She knew it would only make them fight. Besides, he’d done it for Allura. Therefore it was none of Pidge’s business. She needed to butt out.

“You know what? Just… just forget I even said anything. Sorry…” She swirled the teaspoon in her mug a couple times, watching the liquid form a mini volcano. “I guess now that I know that you might have some of the white lion and all that, maybe we can make it happen or something. Details are kind of fuzzy, but I can figure it out. The only thing is Allura straight up disappeared from existence. She doesn’t even have a body. So it’s not really time travel so much as extracting her from time.”

He looked interested in what she had to say. “What are we looking for here?”

“Do you have a pen or piece of paper? I worked it out on the plane, but my notes are in the room.”

Lance reached behind him to the kitchen counter and tore off a part of the next square of paper towels. He took the pencil out from behind his ear and slid both of them across the table to her. Pidge took the pencil and drew out a rough sketch of a circle. Then next to it, she drew a straight line, and then beside that a crude little spider’s web, and finally an infinity sign. Lance watched her draw in rapt attention, though his brows were creased from his attempts to figure out what she was drawing.

“Okay look, there’s no easy way to explain this so pay attention because I’m only saying it once.” She shifted the drawings so it was facing him and then tapped the paper with her nail. “These different paths represent time. You have circular time, which is mostly enormous, lengthy, cyclic abstract concepts like the circle of life, carbon and nitrogen cycles and the like, the whole rain cycle, etcetera. You have linear time which is pretty straight forward. Nanoseconds, days, weeks, years. It follows a consistent path to the future. If you go to sleep, time continues with complete disregard to what you’re doing. Then you have nonlinear time. You following so far?”

Lance stared at the webbed lines she pointed at with the pencil tip and nodded slowly. “Yeah. Nonlinear time is the phenomena when the choices you make affect which future you end up with. Several different choice inputs can lead to the same output just as one choice input can have several different outcomes at any second. Infinite possibilities of connected situations depending on choices.”

Pidge stared at him impressed, her brows rising high on her forehead. “Y-yeah. How did you know that?”

“Coran and I discussed this a long time ago when we were trying to figure out what to do. Didn’t get anywhere though.”

“Oh.” Pidge gave him an apologetic look. “I’m sorry you didn’t make any more progress. But on the plus side, at least you were on the right track.”

“Not as dumb as you remember, huh?” he half joked, though his lips were barely curved into a smile. “So what’s the infinity sign?”

“Infinite time loops. So far we’ve been talking about time in a constant direction. It’s always going towards the future, right? But infinite time loops disregard those rules entirely because they collapse right back in on themselves turning forwards and backwards in time to create the unused and different or the same specific scenario over and over again. The loop can be anywhere from seconds to several whole years. They’re incredibly unstable, and time doesn’t work right when you’re stuck in one. It’s almost like time doesn’t exist.”

“…Are you saying there’s a time loop out there where Allura sacrifices herself over and over again?” Lance sounded appalled.

“Well… maybe, I don’t know. I hope not, but my point is that time loops are useful because they affect neither linear nor nonlinear time, therefore the destruction of one does not break time. The removal of an aspect of the time loop won’t screw with linear or nonlinear time. And that’s _good_. Because the last thing we need is for all of space to get sucked into a time hole or something and spat out who knows where if we’re not all torn to pieces by then anyway.”

Lance’s brows drew down in displeasure. “Okay, but I’m still missing why time loops are so important. What does that have to do with Allura?”

“So I drew one infinity symbol just to represent the way it works, but time loops are infinite, so really, you’re seeing like tens of gajillions of the same line in one.” Pidge drew multiple times over her drawing so he would get the gist of what she meant. “And it’s not just slow going. These time loops are rapid fire, intensely fast, and what do you think happens if you have too many scenarios going backwards and forwards at insane speeds with no rules whatsoever in place?”

“They collide?”

“Exactly.” She slammed the pencil tip at the centre point of her infinity sign where both sides of the loop combined. “Right here. And unlike linear time crashing and forming a singularity and destroying time and space in general, infinite time loops form stasis. It’s a blank space where time dies and stands still. Like the astral plane, for example. The quintessence field might have been another example. We need to find the stasis of a loop that has an Allura of our reality prior to her sacrifice, extract her and there we go. Allura is brought back to life.”

“How do you even find a time loop, Pidge?” Lance looked sceptical, but above that, he looked wary, like he was trying to hold back from getting his hopes up. “That seems like something impossible.”

“It is if you don’t have the proper tools. But I’m Katie Freaking Holt. And you’re connected to Allura by your marks. Finding it will be easier if we work together.”

He touched his face almost involuntarily. “Yeah, but how do you find them?”

“Pocket dimensions,” Pidge said proudly. “And it took me a while to figure this out on the plane, but think about it this way. Every reality forms alternate realities—a mirrored version if you will—and a new one is formed whenever there is a monumental event that could severely shift the balance of the space-time continuum. It’s like a save function. Should parts of our reality get destroyed or damaged, the pocket dimension fills in the space. But pocket dimensions are static to specific occurrences. They don’t move much farther forward and can only repeat the event, therefore they follow infinite time.”

“Pidge, this is making my head hurt.” Lance sighed. “I don’t really get it. How do you enter pocket dimensions?”

“Cracks in time and space. They’re like wormholes, but they’ll tear you into pieces unless you have the magic or science capable of navigating it. I suspect that Kosmo jumps through these cracks which is why he probably sees a limited view into the future in the time he vanishes.”

“You think Kosmo can see into the future?”

“I mean, they found him in the Quantam Abyss, an entire region where time follows no rules. You have to wonder why every time he teleports us in battle, he’s always one step ahead of the enemy.” Pidge could see that Lance was struggling to connect the points, but he didn’t seem closed off to the idea. “All of this is speculation anyway. I wanted to test it because he might be the key to getting in and out. But my point is, Lance, if we can get in the pocket dimension with the infinite time from Allura sacrificing herself, and if we find that blank space—”

“We can find Allura. We can use the white lion to bring her back.” Lance let out a shuddering breath as he hunched over the table, his hands covering the lower part of his face. “Oh my God…”

“Hey…” Pidge shot up from her seat and rounded the corner of the table until she was at the seat next to Lance’s. She plopped down in it and rubbed his back. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll get her back. I promise.”

“I know. It’s just, I’m so… This is the first time in years I’ve ever felt this hopeful that I could see her again.” His voice wavered, eyes welling with tears and a fractured smile on his lips. “We can do this. We can really bring her back.”

She gave him a soft smile, her heart squeezing a bit in her chest. This was the first time in years she’d seen Lance have a glimmer of light in his eyes too.

So she absolutely couldn’t tell him how truly unstable pocket dimensions were. How very important key points about the main reality could be damaged or lost in translation somehow. There was a strong possibility that the Allura they brought back might not have certain memories intact. Or even worse, they could find the wrong identical pocket dimension with an Allura with a completely opposite personality. There were a lot of uncertainties not to mention just tracking down the dimension would take a monstrous effort.

And that was if they even found it.

The other hard part was that the Allura they found would be a remnant of time and space. Still Allura, but they would need unbelievable energy to transfer her from infinite time to linear time and that would take some serious magic because technically she didn’t exist. What Allura had given Lance might do the trick, but he didn’t know how to use it. Not to mention, the Altean magic might not work if it wasn’t attempted by someone who was actually Altean.

This was why she hadn’t wanted to tell Lance about her plan until all her calculations pointed to a perfect outcome. Pidge needed to figure everything out first, but now it was out there. Before, if she failed, Lance would have been none the wiser and she could have gone on with her life disappointed, but at least not breaking Lance’s heart all over again. Now she had no choice but to succeed otherwise Lance would be crushed beyond repair again.

“I… haven’t quite worked out full schematics so that I can stabilise the tech, but I’m almost 85% positive that I can bring her back with your connection and Kosmo’s abilities. And I know 85% isn’t good enough and I wish the number were higher, but I’ve read like fifty articles and so many textbook chapters and I’m still trying to make sense of all this time science shit and I have to work out the math to ensure no statistical anomalies occur and obliterate our universe and reality and—”

“Pidge,” Lance cut her off gently, turning and taking her hands in his and giving them a squeeze. The warmth in his smile made her breath catch in her chest for a moment. “There are not enough words in the world to tell you how much this means to me. Thank you. From the bottom of my heart.”

“…Allura always stopped at nothing to help her friends, Lance. This is the least I can do for her. And for you.” She smiled sheepishly, her cheeks flushing the slightest bit from his soft gaze. “She’s done so much for us. We shouldn’t have had to lose her. But we’ll get her back. And for good.”

To her surprise, he tugged her forward and engulfed her in a hug. She almost stiffened at the unexpected action, but a second later, she could feel his tears wetting her shoulder and his halting breaths from his soft sobs brushing her neck and he was trembling so hard. He was crying like some tight lid he had on his emotions was finally released. How long had he started hiding his tears from everyone? How long had he needed someone to reassure him, to give him hope again, to be there for him as a friend and support in his desperate desire to get Allura back.

Pidge had had her own issues dealing with all her friends separating and moving forward with their lives, but she never knew how badly Lance was trying to deal with his. He’d needed them all, but put on a fake smile for them so his emotions wouldn’t be a burden to them. So they wouldn’t feel guilty and hang back to stay with him. He’d kept his mouth shut about his issues because he didn’t want anyone putting a hold on their life to guide him through his grief.

Pidge _knew_ it had to be that.

Her own eyes teared up at the thought of anniversary dinners where he was so supportive of their new endeavours, congratulating them on their successes all the while nursing his broken heart in private.

And she’d just expected him to get over it in a few years without considering that he might have needed their help. She’d been the nearest friend, and yet Hunk had managed to be there for Lance way more than she had in all these years.

What kind of friend was she?

“Lance…” She held him close, carding the fingers of one hand through his hair as they both cried. “I’m so sorry. I’m here now.”

Lance’s happiness mattered to her. So she’d get him his happy ending with the woman he loved.

No matter what.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i ~~highkey~~ lowkey think lance is holding a manure rake in that juniberry flower picture

Pidge opened her eyes slowly, her vision still dancing between the weird white space of her dream and the model rockets on the desk in her direct gaze. Sleep left her quickly after that, despite the room being immersed in darkness since the sun hadn’t risen yet.

She brought her hand to her face, wiping away tears she hadn’t even realised were trailing down her face. Pidge didn’t usually wake up emotional. Even when she had nightmares, the fear would subside within the first few seconds of waking up, but for some reason, the ache in her chest remained strong and steady.

“What the hell…” she sighed, annoyed to have woken up crying.

She couldn’t remember all of what it entailed, but one thing was for sure, seeing Allura’s smiling face had been jarring. It’d been so long since she actually had seen her in the flesh and not in pictures. And it hurt. Not a day went by when Pidge didn’t miss Allura, but having such a vivid dream about her, only to wake up and be reminded she didn’t exist made her feel like it was the first night after they’d lost Allura all over again.

It was a shit way to start a day; that was for sure.

Pidge wiped her eyes again and groaned, trying to unplaster herself from the sheets as she rolled over. She’d definitely been sweating all night because everything was just so slightly damp and her pits a little sticky and the smell of her own sweat was stinking up the room. She could see the damp spot her body had left and made a mental note to herself to turn the fan on for the rest of the trip.

Her temple throbbed from her fading headache and Pidge laid on her back to stare at the cracks in the ceiling, all the while irritated because for some strange reason, her body had woken her up before the ass crack of dawn, even though she’d been up with Lance late last night. They’d spent more time consoling each other than anything, but random bits of conversation had popped up here and there, and they’d tried to play catch up on the last few years. Lance was decidedly stagnant, but honestly, Pidge was starting to wonder if she’d stagnated too. Sure, she had her job and she was a recognised engineer and techie, but was this really the kind of life she’d envisioned for herself? Nonstop work on things she wasn’t that interested in?

But speaking of Lance, she wondered if he’d even been able to get some sleep in the first place.

At some point, she’d been yawning every other sentence so he’d ended the night and urged her to go get some rest. When she’d left him, he’d still been hunched over the kitchen table and staring out the window towards the flowers. Pidge hoped he’d made an attempt to get some rest.

Pidge struggled to kick off the sheets and peeled herself out of bed. As much as she wanted to lounge around, she found it a waste of time when she’d already woken up. Besides, she had to contact Keith.

It was warm in the room, but a little cooler from the night, so she pulled on a hoodie. Pidge climbed out of the window, being careful not to plummet to her death or something as she painstakingly climbed onto the big tree’s branches. Pidge hadn’t been an outdoorsy girl growing up so the struggle to get up the branches was real. And thankfully, they supported her weight so with painstaking slowness, she managed to climb up to the top to get on the lowest part of the sloped roof of the house. She crawled carefully, making sure it was stable enough to hold her weight as she made her way to the highest point.

She liked it up there. She didn’t exactly _feel_ stable, and she had a feeling there was a good chance she might _fall through_ the ceiling if she wasn’t careful. But it was nice.

Pidge sincerely hoped there was enough service to get her message out to space through the communicator she’d been using to keep in touch with Keith and Hunk and occasionally Shiro when he was out on missions in space. She didn’t explain in full what her plans were (definitely omitted the Allura bit) but she had mentioned to him her experiment to test extractions from time and that she would like to borrow Kosmo for a bit. Of course, she kissed his ass a bit too and layered the message with compliments to make him agree more readily.

This wasn’t the first time she’d asked him for something from space. Every once in a while, if she needed something found only in a certain region of space, she would ask Keith to get it for her and bring it when he next returned to Earth. More often than not, he was exasperated with her requests, though begrudgingly fulfilled them. But she was asking for his companion in vague terms so this might be a hard sell.

Either way, once she saw that the message had gotten through, she made her way slowly back down to the tree, following the nice curve of branches to climb back down and get into the room. Hopefully, Keith would get back to her soon, but time in space was weird, so she hoped the message wouldn’t get caught in the crossroads of some wormhole and end up reaching him years later or something.

Pidge trudged her way to the bathroom to brush her teeth and wash her face. She was sluggish as she changed into her clothes, running through her plans for the next few days and how she was going to get started on a holographic prototype.

To be honest, she was kind of glad Lance knew about the revival plan. They’d made a conscious decision to keep it from anyone else for now until they’d gotten all the pieces of the puzzle in place, but having someone to share ideas and talk about this with was definitely nice. Pidge was used to working on her own, but having the extra support definitely came in handy.

The house was pretty quiet as she trudged her way to the kitchen. She wanted to say it was because people were still sleeping—and maybe some were—but when she entered, the kitchen table had what remained of a breakfast spread laid out and a fresh pot of coffee was being brewed. Lance’s mother was rolling out some dough on her counter and humming along to the tune playing from the radio. When Pidge looked outside the open window, she could see people moving wheelbarrows full of material and dragging tools out to the fields. It was bustling with energy.

Clearly, they’d been up for a while and that surprised Pidge because it wasn’t even five yet.

“Katie! Haven’t seen you in years!” Benita set down the rolling pin and walked around the counter to wrap Pidge up in a warm, tight hug. She squeezed her tight and Pidge couldn’t help her smile as she hugged the woman back. “Did you sleep well?”

Pidge had only met her a few times before, but she’d always been so friendly to the Voltron crew, and it was nice to see she still exuded the same warmth. After they’d gotten laid out in the hospital fighting that first Altean robeast, she’d made care packages for them all and snuck some homemade goodies into their rooms. Benita was the only one in Lance’s family who’d known Pidge was a girl right off the bat, which was impressive considering when Lance used to write home about his cadet life, he’d referred to Pidge Gunderson as a ‘he’ multiple times. Watching his family’s confusion had been admittedly funny back then.

“I uh… it was interesting. Hot, but manageable. I’m surprised I got up this early though.” She typically got four hours of rest on a good day, but never actually woke up in the early morning like this.

“Your body is probably still adjusting to the environment changes. Are you hungry?”

“Not particularly,” Pidge responded, climbing up on one of the kitchen stools and resting her chin on her hands. “A little thirsty though.”

“Lance told me you hate coffee. Try this. You look like you might be a sweet tooth kind of coffee girl. Nadia doesn’t like coffee much either, but she’ll drink this.” She poured Pidge a fresh mug of coffee and then added some steamed milk from the pot on the stove. When she handed it to her, she winked. “Café con leche, McClain style. The secret is where and when you add the sugar.”

Pidge accepted it with a wary look, fully expecting to recoil the way she usually did from that gross coffee taste. She took a sip of it and the rich, nutty flavour of the coffee combined with just the right amount of sugar and sweet milk to mask the bitter aftertaste was so incredible, Pidge had to stop drinking it for a second and look at it in shock.

This was much better than any coffee beverage she’d ever tried, and monumentally better than those stale pots people at work brewed.

“Whoa…” Pidge took another sip of the hot drink, sighing to herself at the warmth that filled her chest. She would have thought that hot coffee and warm weather wouldn’t mix right, but this was fantastic. “I never thought I’d say this … but I think Cuban coffee just beat out my favourite tea.”

Lance’s mom laughed heartily. “There has not been one person who has come here who hasn’t liked our coffee. Now, what’s this about your interesting sleep?”

She ran her finger along a small chip on the rim of the mug. “It was just… Do you all get weird dreams sometimes? Like maybe ones where you see Allura?”

Pidge hadn’t dreamt of Allura in a while. When their group had all split, she’d definitely had quite a few memory dreams of past days in the Castle of Lions when they’d all been getting to know each other better. And of course, a couple nightmares from disastrous battles that left them critically injured or unconscious, but a dream like this? It was odd to her.

The smile that graced Benita’s face was more wistful than anything. “No… but Lance does. He dreams about her a lot. He has for years.”

“Nightmares?”

“I suppose some must be…” She lifted up the dough and rotated it before slapping it back on the counter and resuming rolling it with sharp, precise movements. “He doesn’t tell us about them. He doesn’t cry in front of us anymore either, but I just know. It’s in his eyes. My poor boy. I just want to see him smiling again.”

“Yeah, me too.” Pidge figured he wasn’t talking to anyone about his emotions. And it kind of pissed her off. Sure, she was a private griever in some ways too, but man, Lance needed to get out of his own head. Where was Keith to threaten to kick his ass if he didn’t? “Know where he is?”

“Cleaning the cattle barn. He should be just about finishing.”

Pidge thanked her and made her way out of the house, greeting people she passed and sipping from her mug as she walked to the barn she remembered housed the cows. She half expected it to smell like manure and dirty cow, and though there _was_ that subtle stench she’d come to associate with livestock, it wasn’t too bad and wasn’t overpowering. In fact, it reminded her of the open field home they’d made for Kaltenecker on the Castle and that was an extremely nostalgic scent.

“…any bull would be lucky to have you, _hermosa_.” She heard Lance saying from around the corner.

There was a soft moo and when she turned the corner into the lit barn, he was ushering Kaltenecker slowly to the other side with some of the other eating cows to clear the area he had to clean.

“Am I interrupting something?” Pidge said playfully.

“Nah.” He smiled. “Look, Kaltenecker. It’s your mommy.”

Pidge chuckled as the cow stared at her with the same blank eyes she seemed to give everyone. After a few seconds of silence, the cow mooed at her and then bent down and began eating the hay in front of her.

“How does it feel to see her after so many years?”

“Life changing…” Pidge drawled, sitting down on a small stack of hay bales. She took another sip of the mug. “So you’re up really early.”

“This is normal for me.” Lance stooped to pick his rake back up and shrugged. “Life on a farm requires that discipline. If we’re not up things don’t get done. And if we don’t do them, no one else will.”

“…and you’re ready to do this for the rest of your life?” she asked quietly.

He paused only briefly as he raked out some muck in one of the stalls. “I suppose.”

Even disregarding his statement, she felt a strong resignation coming from him.

“Hey, Lance? This paladin bond?” Pidge waved a hand between both of them. “Still exists, man. I can tell when you’re not telling the truth.”

“What do you want me to say exactly?” Lance turned and gave her an annoyed look. “I don’t hate the farm. I helped out here all the time in the summer when I was in school so I know the ropes, I get to be with most of my family every day, and it’s peaceful. It’s easy. And this is my life now. You make do and adapt.”

“I wasn’t trying to…” she muttered with a frown, put off by his attitude. “I just wanted to know if you’re giving yourself a chance to enjoy things in life you’d always liked.”

“Like what?”

“Like… video games?” When he started dating Allura, it seemed like he set aside that pastime and a lot of other of his goofy antics. “Might be a bad example, but you used to love playing them.”

He turned away, a slight grimace on his face as he shoved away some hay moistened with manure. “No offence, Pidge, but I don’t really have the time for meaningless stuff like that anymore.”

She clenched the mug in shock, indignant anger rising in her at his callous words. That had actually _stung_. Sure, the video games hadn’t necessarily been something they _had_ to do while they were in the war, but it’d been a way to find something normal and consistent in their lives during all the crazy battles. Something that reminded them of home. Not to mention the invaluable time they’d had together had been instrumental to them becoming better friends. It was important to their friendship and for him to dismiss it like that made her feel that she was being dismissed too.

As if he deemed it as inconsequential as the rest of the parts of his life he’d shucked away.

And that left a nasty bitterness welling in her chest.

“Well excuse _me_ for being a _meaningless_ part in your unfortunate frivolous past then!” Pidge shouted, her voice reverberating around the barn. All the cows stopped eating and started watching them. “My apologies for deigning to mistake that you actually hated hanging out with me.”

“Pidge…”

She got to her feet and headed towards the doors. “No, you know what? I’m disturbing your utterly important work. I’ll just go help out someone else.”

“Pidge, I’m sorry.” Lance sighed. She stopped partway out of the door, eyes narrowed as she looked over her shoulder. “I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean to… I was just… I had a bad dream, and I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”

Most likely about Allura.

Pidge let out an annoyed huff and walked back to her spot. “I’m guessing you dreamt about Allura too?”

“Let’s just say I can count on both hands the number of nights I haven’t.” Lance frowned. “Wait. _Too_?”

Pidge nodded, taking a seat. “I can’t remember most of it, but it was weird. I want to say she was trying to tell me something but I couldn’t even hear her. And she was dressed in some royal robes for some reason and her hair was short. I don’t know. It was weird. And I think I was crying in my sleep.”

“Maybe she’s trying to connect with you?”

“Maybe… What happened in your dream?” she asked, hoping to prod him a bit into sharing what was going on with him. He had to stop bottling things up like he was.

“Just the usual.”

Pidge looked at the swirl of white foam with the black of the coffee. “Lance, I know you’re dealing with your pain as best as you can, but you don’t have to shut people out while you do so. I came here for you, okay?”

“Yeah, I kind of figured.” He snorted, moving to the last dirty stall to clean out the dirty grit. “I mean, ‘I just wanted to visit Kaltenecker’ is a terrible excuse. Paladin bond works both ways, you know?”

“Piss off.” Pidge couldn’t help her lips curving up a bit. “I know it’s a stupid excuse. I blame Hunk. My point is, I’m here for you. We’re going to get Allura back. So you can open up to me. I took a month of vacation. If you want someone to make fun of you when you’re ugly crying, I’ll be right there with the tissues and the video camera.”

“You’re a little gremlin, you know that?” he drawled, unamused.

“You know, someone I once knew used to say that to me whenever I beat him playing video games. So pretty much all the time, if I think about it,” Pidge said, trying to goad him into banter. She was getting there slowly, but it still felt like Lance was holding back or some reason.

“Hunk mentioned you matured a lot. I can see now he was obviously full of shit,” Lance snarked, still diverting the conversation, but Pidge caught on to it.

“What did you dream about, Lance?” she pressed again, undeterred.

He ran a hand through his hair in fatigue and stopped working. When he turned around to face her, Pidge kept her gaze steady on his, refusing to relent despite his obvious discomfort with sharing. She felt bad that she was pushing him like this, but it was even worse for him to be so closed off. He had to talk about this stuff, or he would never get through it.

“It was a coronation.” He leaned against the rake, propping his hands and chin on top of the tip of the handle. “Allura’s coronation. She became the queen of New Altea.”

“How is that a bad dream?”

“It’s not a bad dream, per se. But it just _felt_ so bad. She had so much going for her. And I know she wanted to help people, but… sometimes I feel like she should have chosen herself and what _she_ wanted for once.”

“Chosen you?” Pidge asked acutely.

“Am I horrible for thinking that?” Lance laughed humourlessly. “I respect everything she’d always wanted and done, and I always will and I thank her every day for being such an outstanding person, and obviously her life, her choice, but there’s always a part of me that wonders why I wasn’t enough for her to want to stay. It’s like I wasn’t worth it… It sounds bad, doesn’t it? I promise I’m not mad at Allura or anything, but it felt like the universe’s way of saying ‘fuck you; you’re not worthy of her’ to me or something.”

Pidge had no idea how to respond to that. She couldn’t relate, but she could definitely feel the pain behind his words. It disheartened her to see that years later, Lance still hadn’t gotten over any of his self-worth issues. The circumstances behind losing Allura had made them worse.

“It does sound bad, but not in the way you’re thinking. Look, if that’s how you’re feeling, that’s how you’re feeling. We’re not perfect. We can’t help how we respond to things,” Pidge said in the quiet of the barn. “But Allura was a chosen one and one of the last ancient Alteans with untapped potential and powers she hadn’t even unlocked yet. No matter where our lives were going, at some point, you had to have known your paths might diverge.”

Lance looked up and glowered at her, but she didn’t give him a chance to speak. “ _Despite that_ , you can’t just define your importance based off where you are or were with Allura. There’s more to you than that. She chose to sacrifice herself to save realities. But that is in no way a statement regarding _your_ worth. They’re not related situations. And you need to stop thinking about it that way because you have more going for you than your relationship. You’re so loyal to the people you care about. And you’re selfless. You have a huge heart. You kept our morale from dipping by distracting us with your antics. There’s more too.”

He didn’t respond outright at first, though she did catch a hint of a real smile when he looked away.

“Your dream was a good dream. You just have to look at it in a positive way. You saw Allura happy and healthy and she got to be a leader. How is that not a kickass dream?”

“I guess you’re right.”

“I am. And it sure as hell beats out the unforgettable first part of _my_ dream.”

“Oh yeah?” Lance scraped at the bottom of the stall, pulling out the clumps of manure and straw dirtying it up. “What was that?”

“Coran was breakdancing. Some Altean ceremony. _Without_ pants on.”

“So what you’re really saying is,” Lance rose a taunting brow and eyed her over his shoulder, “you had a sex dream about Coran.”

That wiped the smirk right off her face.  “Ohhh he’s got jokes now, I see.”

That drew a laugh from Lance and he continued on with his work after that. Pidge quieted to let him concentrate a bit more.

Lance finished up moving some dirty hay into a wheelbarrow close to the door. Pidge slurped on the rest of her sweet coffee while he worked, kicking her legs back and forth as she watched his meticulous process of scraping out manure from one section of the stall to the drain and then rinsing it with the pressure hose. The process seemed tedious, but he was intent on his job, making sure that the stalls were of utmost cleanliness for the cows. All the muck was pushed down the mini alley to the draining system and then Lance scrubbed at the ground and rinsed until most all traces of the excrement had been removed. He left small piles of hay in each stall for the cows to munch on and when he was done, moved the cows back to their original stalls. He wiped his forehead of sweat and surveyed his work to make sure it was alright.

She’d always known Lance would work hard in his private training to get better with his bayard, but seeing him actually put so much effort in something was captivating. More specifically, watching the muscles of his arms and back work as he finished up his tasks was pretty nice.

(So sue her. She still thought he was attractive, even if she didn’t have feelings for him anymore).

Still, despite his devotion, the vibe he was giving off was weird. When Hunk talked about cooking and his restaurant, he was always excited. He gave off a satisfied energy. Shiro did too, whenever he came back from his missions off in space. Even Keith seemed content most of the time, though she picked up a restless vibe from him more often than not.

Lance gave off none.

Pride in his work, maybe, but she wouldn’t exactly call that being _content_. She knew he loved the farm; the times he’d talked about it on the Castle, he always had such great things to say, but there was a difference between spending summers here and spending the rest of his life here. And she wasn’t sure if spending the rest of his life here was what he wanted, not that he would ever say anything, _clearly_.

Pidge was drawn out of reading the bond when Lance picked up one of the huge steel buckets and a pail and brought them both into Kaltenecker’s stall. The steel bucket, he put the strainer on top and set it underneath her udder. The other pail, he set upside down beside her body.

“I’ve got one more task left before we take them out to the pastures to roam,” Lance said, stroking Kaltenecker’s back gently. “Alright, lovely. Time to get you milked.”

“You know, I’ve been wondering. How is Kaltenecker able to constantly produce milk when she’s never pregnant?”

“I think space messed up her reproductive system a bit. At least that’s what I’m guessing, because when we got her checked out here, all her vital signs showed she was pregnant, but there’s no calf in there.”

“Perpetual phantom pregnancy?” Pidge was simultaneously weirded out and thought it was so cool. She couldn’t imagine what it would feel like for her entire body to think it was constantly pregnant though. Having no periods might be awesome, but damn the hormonal changes would drive her nuts. Maybe that explained why Kaltenecker always looked like she didn’t want to deal with anyone’s shit. “That’s like something out of the Twilight Zone.”

Lance nodded. “She’s not in any pain though. And she’s pretty chill so we’re monitoring her closely, but I think she’ll be alright.”

“That’s good. Must be a boon for your grandpa’s farm since you don’t have to worry about fertility treatments and insemination for her.” Pidge smiled at Kaltenecker who’d lifted her head and mooed in boredom before eating again. “I’m glad through all that’s happened, she made it out okay.”

“Yeah. So.” The look on his face was just a little too mischievous and warning bells in Pidge’s head told her to run as he turned slowly to face her. “Do you want to try milking her?”

Pidge gave Lance a dry look. “Not really. It’s been years anyway and—”

“If you’re spending a month here, you have to put in work for your stay. I wasn’t joking about that. Without Rachel, we’re down a hand and she used to do the milking and mucking for the cows and horses.”

“Lance, I don’t mind working for my stay but I would really prefer not to milk any cows.”

He ignored her, walking over to her nonchalantly enough, though he looked too entertained. For a brief second of horror, she really thought Lance was going to try to pick her up or something and haul her over to the cows like a sack of potatoes. She set the mug down, gearing up to run, but he clearly anticipated it and caught her wrist before she could even get up. He tugged her over to Kaltenecker’s stall while Pidge tried her hardest to sink her heels into the ground, throwing a fake tantrum as if she was a child, but there was no friction to keep her from sliding and Lance was a lot stronger than she remembered. She was practically being dragged, and all the while, he was snickering.

“Lance! I don’t want to milk a cow. I’ll help out in the fields!”

“You don’t have nearly enough muscle in your arms to help out there yet.”

“No! Anything but milking!”

She’d avoided milking Kaltenecker in space because her udder kind of freaked her out. Plus she was scared of hurting them somehow despite how amazing she was at working her projects and metal into shapes she needed as well as precision tools that required steady hands. The process was just weird to her and so she’d let Lance handle it more often than not.

He came to a stop, finally letting go of Pidge’s arm when they were beside the cow. “I’ll walk you through it again if you need me to, but I’m not letting you out of this.”

“Fine.”

Pidge sulked a bit, but watched as he first took a soft wet rag and wiped off the udder of dirt and other suspicious stains until it was clean. Then he sat on the pail took hold of two of the teats of the udder, squeezed and tugged down a couple times to get rid of the first small streams and then began pulling milk out to fill the pail.

“Remember to be firm, but gentle, yeah?” he said, observing the stream of milk. “When the pail is full, bring it straight to the fridge in our storage barn. My mom usually bottles them and refrigerates them to prepare for delivery. When these two are empty, switch to the other teats.”

It was arguably fascinating, the ease with which he milked Kaltenecker. The cow didn’t seem to have any discomfort at all, and Pidge found Lance’s hands particularly enrapturing. He was quick in his work, but not careless and she noted how he arranged his hand and which fingers he used to get the milk out.

“Damn… look at those masterful hands,” Pidge joked. “Ladies must love you in bed, huh…”

“Do you mind?” Lance snorted. “Don’t pollute our pure daughter with your filthy language and innuendo.”

“I’m just saying… skilful, nimble fingers are a turn on for some.”

He cocked a brow and turned to her, mirth in his gaze. “It’s okay to admit you’re talking about yourself. I won’t judge your kinks, Pidge.”

“Thank you so much for your support. I can finally stop hiding my filthy, filthy habits.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He nudged her side with his elbow. “Alright, you try.”

He stood up and she plopped in front of Kaltenecker, letting go of her long breath and psyching herself up in her mind. Pidge rubbed the udder gently, mentally apologising in advance for any mistakes she might make or if she hurt her. She remembered milking her on the castle ship here and there and carefully took hold of the teats right at the top where they connected with the udder. She did still remember the basics, and in addition to watching exactly what Lance did, it was easier than she thought.

“See? What were you so afraid for? You’re a natural.”

“No, I’m a genius.” Pidge stood up a little and patted Kaltenecker gently on the flank. “And she’s a good girl.”

“She is your daughter, after all,” Lance remarked casually, leaning comfortably against their cow. “Takes after you a lot.”

“And the award for corndog of the year goes to…”

Lance laughed, turning away to go work on milking the other cows. From what Pidge remembered, it could take a while, so she was glad he wasn’t just leaving it to her.

They worked well into the sun rising and even past that, milking the cows in pails that were then strained and placed in the refrigeration unit in their storage barn. His mother usually handled the bottling, labelling, and packaging for deliveries, which quite frankly, Pidge was glad for because it seemed utterly tedious.

Once they’d done all of that work, they herded the cows out to a pasture so they could roam and eat and headed back to the house so Pidge could get breakfast that she’d skipped.

“Marco and I are heading to town for morning deliveries,” Lance said before they split up for their destinations. “There’s a store I think you might want to check out to see if they have some things you’re looking for. I’m gonna muck the horse stables and then we can meet at the truck in let’s say… an hour?”

“Yeah. Sounds like a plan.”

This was nice. The tension from the day before seemed to have dissipated—well most of it anyway—since their good cry in the kitchen. She still had personal issues with some of the things Lance had said, not to mention this whole Lance dying thing was going to be brought up again at some point, but at least they were talking with some sort of ease again.

All that was left was to reintroduce him to his sense of adventure. She knew part of him had died with Allura, but she wanted to help him get that part back. And hopefully, travelling to the pocket dimension would do just that.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> was going to upload 5 chapters, but proofing was killing me so… yeah i failed ^^;;
> 
> ~~also I hate stick with a burning passion sometimes~~

“I think that was the last crate of milk, right?” Lance asked Marco, running through the small list of names for the deliveries as they trudged through the centre of the little town back to the truck.

After Lance and Marco had finished their morning tasks and Pidge had eaten, the two boys had loaded up the crates of milk bottles in large bins filled with ice to keep the milk fresh. Pidge hadn’t participated because she didn’t want to mess anything up, but she’d listened to Benita’s explanations that health hazards of drinking unpasteurised milk straight from the cow were usually negligible provided they kept it refrigerated and used the utmost sanitary practices to pull milk too. Most people with dairy cows apparently didn’t care about the whole pasteurising thing, and they thought the milk tasted better fresh from the cow.

Pidge had been hesitant (and just a tiny bit worried) to try it, but the taste _had_ surprised her.

It was sweeter, thicker and had a richer taste. It was noticeably fresh, the way most organic food tasted compared to other over processed goods. But understandably, the quality deteriorated more quickly which was why early immediate delivery and proper storage procedure was of utmost importance to make sure that the milk lasted at least eight days for drinking. After that, it would need to be baked in recipes or cooked to kill the burgeoned bacteria.

It’d been a lot of information, but Pidge had always been a fast learner and quite intrigued to gain more knowledge, so the whole mini-lesson had been pretty cool to her.

Apparently, McClain Farm was the supplier of milk for so many other farms as well as a couple restaurants and stores in the next town over. It’d been fun for Pidge to join them in making the rounds, talking and catching up with their most loyal customers. She only understood a little bit of Spanish, but from what she could make out, it seemed a lot of the people grew up with Lance and Marco’s grandparents and had known all the kids since they were young. One of the restaurant owners kept trying to set either of the boys up with a couple of her great nieces and some granddaughters, which Pidge definitely stored for teasing material.

She hadn’t done much but walk around alongside the two of them carrying crates—and actually kind of hating how she looked like some dwarf since they both towered over her (which was precisely why she wore her trusty heeled boots to work 99% of the time)—but it had been good to understand how things worked. And hearing the locals talk would definitely help her Spanish improve.

Pidge liked the atmosphere of the town too. The old men playing checkers on their store’s porches. Mothers on errands with their excited kids. Teenagers playing music in the streets and joking around with their friends. Even the tourists on vacations who definitely looked refreshed like leaving their bustling lives was worth it. The locals were also friendly and generous, and a few who spoke English had even given her cute trinkets or in the case of a sweet old lady, a pair of handmade earrings with a crochet design.

(Although something got lost in translation and the women kept referring to her as Lance’s foreign lover).

It was quaint, not bustling with so much energy that it would get exhausting, but not sleepy like most small towns. She could tell a lot of the construction in this particular town was lacking or weathered, but the people seemed content with their lives. She was glad she’d heeded Benita’s warning and changed into a sundress though because it was very humid and the heat clung to her like a second skin.

 “Yeah, that was the last of the milk.” Marco rested his hands on top of his head with a yawn as they came to a stop at the truck. “We have to go to the hardware store now. Get that wood for the cattle barn and the fence that Veronica’s horse decimated. And the lightbulbs. I think we need a new power drill too.”

Lance pulled open the passenger door and pulled the sell log out of the glove compartment to mark their sales. “I thought Sylvio fixed the fence before he left?”

“Because a fourteen year old boy is definitely going to do extra work instead of preparing for space training camp.” Marco snorted, giving Lance a look. Then he turned to Pidge with a playful little smile. “He was excited because he thought you were going to be one of the teachers. He has a pretty big crush on you. I don’t blame him, really…”

Pidge ignored the comment entirely. “Is the cattle barn broken?”

Lance let out a little snort, shaking his head in amusement as he scribbled on the form.

“Nah, but it’s seen better days and the last storm knocked the roof a bit out of alignment. That one hasn’t been renovated since Lance started at the Garrison so it’s about time it got redone,” Marco explained. “Takes a while to get it fixed up though and we need to work fast since the weather here sometimes gets bad. We’ll need trained help to get the barn raised quickly. You work with drills in your lab?”

“More like smaller precision tools for nanotech and even then I input codes in a computer for a robotic arm to do the work. I’m a handy person, but not necessarily with power tools, you know? I’ve never touched a drill.”

“…I could definitely show you how to work it, Katie,” Marco said in a low voice, his eyes drifting down her figure not so subtly. “Give you a _private_ lesson, if you’d like?”

Marco was definitely cute. Same lithe build and mischievous look on his face that Lance had. And the facial hair worked for him and like Lance, he had gorgeous blue eyes—though more expressive—and if he was anyone else other than a McClain, she _might_ have considered it. But she wasn’t the type to go hooking up with her friends’ siblings, so that was a hard pass. Besides, from what Lance had told her about him in the past, the dude was a notorious flirt and probably the reason why Lance used to act that way for much of his adolescence.

“Hmm, you know?” Pidge drawled, poking a finger in his chest and putting just a bit more space between them. “I appreciate the offer, but I don’t think I’ll be needing personal _drilling_ sessions from you…”

His lips pulled up in a small smirk. “We still talking about the same thing here?”

“Hot, hard, and sweaty drilling with precision.” She tilted her head and gave him as innocent a look as she could muster. “For a cattle barn, right?”

“You’re a funny one.” Marco laughed and looked pleased as he turned and fake whispered to Lance. “It’s always the nerdy girls who are freaks in the sack. If you don’t want her, I’ll take her.”

Pidge rolled her eyes good-naturedly when Marco gave her a saucy wink.

“Fuck off, Marco, and stop harassing Pidge.” Lance shoulder checked him a bit and put the list back in the glove compartment before shutting the door. “Go get the shit from the hardware store. We’ll meet you back here in a bit.”

“Fine, but don’t take too long. I’m trying to watch a game with Pa in the afternoon,” Marco called out as he walked off.

Lance started heading off in a different direction and she followed beside him. They ended up going to a small store nearby that kind of resembled a pawn shop. The store clerk, a teenage kid who looked utterly bored, was reading a magazine behind the counter and barely so much as looked up when they walked in. It was stifling in the store, muggy and the air so thick with heat that she could practically see it as a miasma in the air. She could already feel a thin layer of sweat forming on her skin.

“Holy shit, Lance… Explain again why we’re here?”

“They’ve got some vintage stuff in this store. Sometimes there’s weird alien tech here too. I thought maybe you might want to see if you can find something you need.”

There were typical tourist things like hats and jewellery and ceramic souvenirs, but what interested her most were the mostly unorganised aisles of weird gadgets and gizmos on stands and racks. Some of the objects definitely looked like alien tech. She and Lance checked the racks of items, shifting them around and picking up each piece to see if it might come in handy, but nothing in particular stood out to Pidge as something that might be needed for what would likely be an energy portal that could manipulate quark matter.

There was undoubtedly some alien tech she’d never seen before that made her interested in studying them to see their origins, but for the most part, she wasn’t struck by any sudden inspiration. Lance meandered beside her, surveying things on higher shelves with a mostly bored expression, but she caught the restless energy coming off of him.

“You know,” he said, vaguely blasé, but not enough for her not to pick up on his bewilderment, “I never thought I’d see the day Katie Holt became a flirt. Kinda shocking.”

Pidge shrugged, dragging her finger along one of the shelves. The dust had dried and crusted, forming a crispy grey film over the wood. “Three years is a long time for someone to change.”

“ _Yeah_ , no kidding.”

It’d been easy enough to get people interested from the start, thanks to her growth into womanhood, but the flirting hadn’t been hard to figure out. She just figured if she lined her usual sarcastic responses with some more sexual connotations, added some batted eyelashes, and drew their attention to her mouth, she was likely to get them interested enough in her without her clothes on. Of course, she was a lot more picky with her selections now—not that she’d even been with someone in a while to be honest—but in her most promiscuous time, getting people to want to sleep with her had been so easy.

Not that she was going to tell Lance about that. They’d never really been the kind of best friends who could talk about stuff like _that_. Although to be fair, she’d been much more preoccupied with her work and paladin duties than things like hookups and by the time she became interested in relationships, they’d already started losing contact.

And it felt inappropriate to talk about that for some reason she couldn’t figure out.

“It’s not like it’s such a crazy thing. Flirting is pretty easy. Honestly, I don’t understand why you were so bad when we were younger,” Pidge said, slightly mocking. “You’re supposed to use your assets to your advantage.”

“I was trying too hard.” He scratched at the mark on his cheek with a slightly wistful expression. “I can’t help but feel like if I’d stopped being so cringey way earlier, Allura might have noticed me sooner.”

“Nah. You’d still have been a total dork. You can’t flirt with pretty girls for shit.” Pidge chuckled to herself. “I bet you’re still a notoriously bad flirt, if Marco is any indication.”

She stopped by a souvenir rack near the back, not realising that she’d issued an unspoken challenge when Lance narrowed his eyes. Pidge was observing a set of mini salsa dancing figurines that were on sale when something plopped on top of her head. She reached up in confusion and realised Lance had put a wide brimmed straw sunhat on her head.

“You should get this hat. The sun gets pretty unbearable in the afternoons.”

Pidge made a face. “I don’t like hats. They always look weird on my head because my hair is so poofy.”

“I don’t know…” Lance took steps closer, reaching up and tugging on the front lock of her hair. “I think it looks cute on you. Brings out your gorgeous eyes.”

It caught Pidge completely off guard. For a moment, she wondered if the heat had gotten to Lance until she remarked the slight twitch of his lips as if he was trying to keep himself from laughing.

“Hold up… are you… flirting with me?” Pidge scoffed and crossed her arms in front of her when Lance had to chew on his lower lip to keep his expression neutral. “You are! You’re totally trying to prove me wrong!”

“I mean, you’re out here slandering our trademark McClain flirt game.” Lance stepped even more in her space. He was _way_ too close, close enough that Pidge had to tilt her head a bit to meet his gaze. “Gotta defend my family’s honour.”

“Yeah, you’re barking up the wrong tree.” Pidge stood straighter in defiance, feeling an urge to lean back, but refusing to play his stupid game. “I’m not taking it back.”

“Aww c’mon, Katie,” Lance murmured, his gaze on her mouth as he set his hands on the display counter behind her, arms caging her on either side. Suddenly she was noticing that Lance had light scruff on his chin. “At least give me a chance to change your mind…”

What the…

Her heart definitely jumped a bit from the blatant heat in his eyes when he brought his gaze slowly back to hers.

“You’re blushing, Pidge,” he said, a smug smirk on his face.

“Because it’s hot in this store!”

“It’s hot?” He quirked a brow, leaning down until their gazes were level. “Or I am?”

“Okay, fuck off, you made your point!” She pushed against his abdomen to get him to move, felt the corded muscle, and yanked her hands off him in almost the same breath. Lance snickered, watching her glower at him as she tried to put space between them without touching him. Her cheeks felt like they were on fire. “M-maybe now you can somewhat _semi-competently_ flirt, but you definitely couldn’t in the past.”

“Three years is a long time for someone to change…” Lance remarked casually enough as he straightened up and turned around, though there was a distant look in his eyes, and it seemed he was alluding to something else entirely. “Right?”

“Fine, I’ll give you some props considering your best line used to be ‘you’ve already activated my particle barrier’ which I can’t believe even came out of your mouth,” Pidge joked, though she was still a little shocked at him.

Seriously. When the hell had he learned to flirt?

Lance had always been a Grade A Goofy Goober™ when it came to stuff like that. It made her wonder what else she’d missed about his life in the past few years.

“You’re one to talk.” Lance looked entirely bemused. “You were over there talking about fucking in very badly disguised innuendo with my brother.”

“Drills are power tools used for construction projects. I don’t know what you thought you heard, but you need to get your mind out of the gutter.”

Lance rolled his eyes, a real smile playing on the corner of his lips. “Goddamn, you are impossible.”

“That’s the Pidge way, after all.” She spun around and sauntered away.

And if she was swinging her hips just a little more, who cared?

Two could play at that game.

(Plus she was mad Lance’s cheap flirt tactics had actually kind of _worked_ a little).

She and Lance ended up splitting up for a bit to see if they could look through the items faster. Occasionally, he’d ask her if something was what she needed and hold it up, but aside from some hollowed cylindrical pipe she figured she could use as a channel to transport energy safely in one direction, nothing else seemed good enough.

After some time passed, they decided to call it quits and try again on some other day. Lance handed her the pipe and went off to the restaurant next door to use the bathroom while she made the purchase.  As she headed to the counter, a small bin of games being sold caught her eye. Or more specifically, the game that was sitting on the top of the pile.

Killbot Phantasm XXVI.

Pidge froze, her eyes widening as she stared at it. She’d forgotten all about giving away this game. And about a year later, the company had disbanded so the games had stopped being produced, so she gave up ever finding it again. Killbot Phantasm was officially a vintage item now, and the only one in the collection that she didn’t have.

In the past, she’d considered doing a multiplayer marathon with Lance and going through every single game until they got to the twenty-sixth. He said he no longer played them, but maybe…

Before she could lose her nerve, she plucked it from the box and added it to the things she was already planning on buying. She wasn’t sure if it was a stupid purchase, but it might be worth bringing up in the future or something.

So she bought it.

And the sunhat.

(But _not_ because of Lance. The sun really was intense, and it tended to make her freckles more prominent so she wanted to avoid that).

She stuck the pipe and game in her satchel and then walked outside. Lance was waiting for her when she exited and as they headed back to the truck, they stopped at a street vendor’s cart who was selling some coconut ice cream. Lance bought her a cup so she could apparently try the best damn ice cream she’d ever have. The man was super nice and gave them an extra cup for free. She’d been sceptical, but her first spoonful nearly blew her away from how creamy and silky it tasted, so fresh that it was like fireworks in her mouth. She didn’t even really like milk or milk based food, but this was too amazing.

“This is _really_ good,” Pidge said around the spoon and debating whether or not she wanted to kick Lance, who’d been watching her reaction with a shit-eating grin. “It doesn’t taste processed or anything! I can’t get over how fresh it is!”

Lance puffed up a bit in pride. “That’s because it’s made from milk from our farm.”

“Fuck, if you guys keep introducing me to stuff like this, the foodgasms are going to kill me.” First the café con leche, then Lance’s mom’s homemade bread and the amazing breakfast Pidge had gorged on, and now this?

 “You sound like Hunk.” Lance laughed, holding his own out to her. “Here. You look like you’re about to jump me if I don’t finish this right now. You can have mine.”

Pidge made grabby hands as she took it. “My hero.”

They ended up at the truck at roughly the same time as Marco and after helping Marco put the stuff in the cargo bed, they piled back into the unbearably hot car. And the AC was so ancient and barely able to sputter out three streams of cool air. Pidge wanted to die, especially since she was sitting in the middle and both the boys reeked of sweat the longer they drove. Thankfully, air was circulating since they’d rolled the windows down and Pidge was able to breathe some. But they both were playfully arguing about something in Spanish and she was stuck there kind of awkwardly staring out the windshield because she couldn’t really stare out any windows without staring at one of them. She could understand maybe every half sentence, but she did figure out that 1) they were cussing at each other and 2) they were fighting about a play in some baseball game so she officially tuned out the conversation. When they came upon that first corn field she recognised, she almost wanted to cheer since that meant they were one step closer to finally leaving this inferno.

After a while of driving, her eyes kind of glazed over, so she almost missed the whole ass tree trunk log that was plopped smack dab in the middle of the corn road. Neither Lance nor Marco seemed to have noticed. And they were approaching it pretty damn fast.

“Lance! Watch out for the log!” Pidge shouted, pointing out in front.

He snapped to attention, gasping a bit and yanking the stick to another gear as he hit the brakes hard. The truck made an earsplitting, screeching wail sound like some dying animal that had Pidge wincing at the grinding noise. It sounded like something popped as they came to an abrupt stop right in front of the log.  The engine stalled.

For a moment they were quiet, breathing a little hard and gaping just a bit.

“Jesus, Lance…” Marco pushed open the passenger door and climbed out, heading to the front to see if he’d hit the log. “Clutch in while you brake! Don’t try to downshift like that, you moron.”

“It was an accident! I panicked!” he said indignantly, turning the ignition off and then on to start the engine. It cranked like it was wheezing but thankfully started up. Pidge let out an involuntary sigh of relief. “I was more concerned with _not_ totalling the truck with the damn log! It must have fallen off someone’s truck in transport.”

She hopped out too as Lance did and they walked around to see the extent of possible damage.

“Right tire’s blown,” Marco muttered, kicking the deflated tire at the front while Lance stooped to look under the front of the car. Then he stood and lifted the hood to peer inside to see if there was any damage. “Must have gotten gashed by some debris or something. We’re stuck here for now.”

“We’re gonna die here,” Pidge said, already feeling that unbearable heat start creeping into her skin, “in the middle of a fucking corn maze.”

“My grandpa keeps tools in the back. We’ll be fine. We just need to switch it with the spare.” Lance glanced at his brother. “You mind helping?”

“I’m good thanks…” Marco whistled as he sat down on the stump and took out his phone to check for service. “Not really trying to get my clothes dirty today. Hot lunch date and all.”

“With what? A fucking _cow_?” Lance rolled his eyes as he shut the hood of the car and headed over to the cargo bed to get the spare and other tools.

“Well that’s not very nice, Lance. You haven’t even met her yet.”

“I-I didn’t mean it like that!” Lance spluttered while Marco chuckled.

“Lance, I’ll help.” Pidge followed him, rolling up imaginary sleeves. “Mostly because I’m positive if we get stuck here, we’ll be the perfect protagonists for some horror story. And I’m not interested in getting crazy murdered on my vacation.”

Lance and Marco looked surprised.

“You know how to change a flat?” Lance asked, and she just knew he was questioning her because of her size.

“I know basic car stuff to save me in the event of some emergency.” She shrugged, getting the tire iron and jack from the back as Lance picked up the spare. “Keith taught me last year. He was pretty pissed off that I would drive home at like 3 AM and didn’t know roadside emergency procedures. He’d make a surprisingly good mechanic.”

“That’s hot as hell,” Marco said, eyeing Pidge in interest. “But aren’t you scared of messing up your dress?”

Pidge looked at Lance and he looked at her for a second before they both burst out laughing.

“Are you kidding?” Lance dropped the tire and they squatted beside the busted one. “She doesn’t give a fuck about stuff like that. She’s the most fearless person you’ll ever meet.”

“Huh. Sounds like someone I used to know,” Marco responded, giving Lance a pointed look that screamed displeasure.

Pidge saw Lance’s shoulders stiffen and when she glanced at his face, he was scowling. “Knock it off, Marco.”

“I’m just saying…”

The conversation pretty much died after that and she and Lance got to work trying to fix up the car. They had to double team to loosen up the lug nuts, with Lance taking one side of the cross and Pidge taking the other side. It took a lot of effort and grunting and so much sweating to make the dumb screws unwind, mostly because of the fact that it seemed they were heavily rusted. With both of them though, they managed to get the nuts moving.

After that, it went by pretty fast. Lance jacked up the front and she took out the nuts and switched out the busted one for the spare. Then he put the lug nuts back and after lowering the truck, they teamed up again to tighten the screws well.

“You know, now that I think about it, I’m not surprised you know how to fix cars. You’ve always been pretty good at mechanical stuff,” Lance said out of the blue. “Is this the kind of thing you do at your lab?”

“Not really. I mean, I do know my way around a rocket engine and the basic construction. My dad kind of raised me teaching me his craft.” Pidge grunted as she and Lance finished on one nut and moved to the one across from it. “I help him out sometimes when he needs a hand. It’s pretty cool stuff, but it takes a ton of work. Just last week, my dad was telling me that he wanted to build a clean energy rocket utilising quintessence _and_ solar radiation, so he wanted to work together to figure out how to create an engine that could tolerate that amount of crude power and distribute it through the circuits without making the whole thing blow up. Wish I could help him, but I’ve got my hands full.”

“Sounds like you enjoy it a lot. Rocket stuff.”

Pidge knew she loved making robots, but she’d never really thought about her interest in rockets too. It _was_ a pretty enjoyable part of her day when her father asked her to stop by and look at what he was working on. She rather enjoyed that feeling of satisfaction when she was done tuning something up even if she had grease in her hair and her fingers were numb and calloused from working with metal.

“I guess I do… It’s pretty fun, the whole combination of mechanics and tech.”

They moved the iron to the third lug nut. “Yeah, you were always your happiest on the Castle when you were building and working on stuff with Hunk. Or at least the vibe from the bond was usually pretty happy. You haven’t really had that vibe in the past few years.”

Pidge’s brows lifted in a bit of surprise. She knew Lance had been one of the paladins who was most in tune with the bond, so the fact that he could read it that easily with that much distance between them wasn’t so surprising. But he’d said her vibe wasn’t happy, and though she did feel like there was something missing from time to time, she hadn’t thought it was prominent enough to be noticeable.

“…What _do_ you read off of me?”

Lance frowned, his gaze unfocused as he prodded the bond.

“Honestly? You seem a little lost. You’re content with things, but it’s like you haven’t found your place yet or something.” His dazed look cleared, and he turned to look her in the eye. “It’s almost like even though you’re this world-renowned engineer, you don’t think you’ve accomplished anything meaningful to you.”

Pidge stared at the ground, a frown marring her brows. She’d never really thought about it that way, but if she was honest with herself, it wasn’t false. She’d had a lot of accomplishments that had bettered the world at the request of other people, but when was the last time she’d just created something kind of juvenile for the sake of creating something? Something that gave her joy.

“You got all that from the bond?” she asked quietly, her hands letting go of the wrench as she watched Lance tighten the last lug nut.

“I got that from knowing _you_. Or at least, knowing the old you.” He eyed her sideways. “Not this nasty new Pervy Pidge who makes provocative jokes around innocent cows.”

She chuckled and nudged Lance with her elbow. “Still a troublemaker. I haven’t changed _that_ much.”

“In some ways, no.” Lance finished up with a satisfied sigh and knocked his fist against the tire a bit to make sure it was sturdy. “But I kind of don’t recognise you. I don’t mean that as an insult or anything but…”

“It’s like meeting someone totally new when you learn things about them you never knew before, despite knowing them for so many years.”

That was how she felt about him too in some ways.

Of course, three years for the most part away from each other would have that effect.

He nodded. “Yeah. That.”

They stared at each other for a few seconds, smiling a bit.

“So… do I need to give you guys some privacy or…?” Pidge and Lance turned to Marco with incredulous looks on their faces, and he snickered to himself. “Well now that I’ve got your attention, do you want to head back to the farm since you’re done? It’s kind of hot out here.”

For probably the thousandth time that day alone, Lance rolled his eyes, but he pulled the jack from its place and took the wrench back as well. Pidge strained to lift the popped tire, but she hauled it to the cargo bed. Afterwards, all three of them picked up the log and put it beside the wood Marco had bought for the fence. It was perfectly good hickory wood and Marco figured they might as well cut up this chunk for a barbecue sometime during her stay.

Pidge had absolutely no objections to that.

Once they’d gotten back in the truck, Lance took off the parking brake, kicked the truck into second gear and they rumbled off to get back to the farm.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao for the purpose of this story, marco will be the lanky boi and luis is the papa of nadia and sylvio
> 
> (update 1/3)

“You should be fine to take these off at the end of the day. But I would put some salve on it,” Nadia said sheepishly, putting a sixth bandage on yet another small cut on Pidge’s hand. She looked a little scared. “I’m sorry Lance #4 got so aggressive. She’s not usually broody, but I guess she wasn’t prepared for an unfamiliar face.”

Nadia’s mother cackled with laughter from where she was reading her book on the worn wicker chair on the porch.

“Hey, it’s no big deal,” Pidge said honestly, tucking a strand of Nadia’s loose hair behind her ear when it drifted in the girl’s face. She grinned up at her as she picked up another bandage. “I’ve gotten squished and knocked out by a giant Galra soldier before. Getting pecked to death by a chicken is nothing.”

Nadia giggled, unwrapping another bandage and putting it on her last cut. “We can try again tomorrow if you’d like? But she’ll probably keep pecking at you until you no longer pull away. The only way to make her stop is if you show it doesn’t bother you.”

Pidge sighed. She’d been appointed to learn how to gather eggs from the hens after dinner, but it had gone horribly and after feeling a strip of skin practically get torn off by that vile little hen, they’d decided it would be best to take a break. Of all the things she’d been learning on this farm, the egg retrieving was her least favourite, and if she had to get pecked at multiple times for this chicken to finally leave her alone, it wasn’t going to get any better. And it hadn’t helped that Lance stood there the whole time, laughing his ass off every time she flinched.

“The next time we muck the cow stable, I’m dumping manure down your shirt…” Pidge grumbled under her breath, plotting how to get back at Lance.

“Hmm?” Nadia asked curiously, blinking at her before standing up from her crouch to put the first aid kit away. “There! All done!”

“Thank you.” Pidge flexed her hand as the girl disappeared into the house, wincing a bit from the multiple pricks of pain with each movement. “I officially hate chickens.”

Lisa shook her head in amusement. “That’s fair.”

“Is there anything else you want me to help you out with since the whole getting eggs thing was a bust?” Pidge asked, rising to her feet from the porch couch and stretching out her back to crack the tight joints.

“I think you deserve a rest after your assault,” Lisa responded evenly, though she still looked like she had more laughter to get out of her system. “Go enjoy the rest of your evening. I’ll handle anything else they might need you for.”

“Thanks,” Pidge said gratefully. “See you tomorrow.”

“Goodnight, Katie.”

She always wanted to help out a little more, but everyone kept pushing her to relax and get some rest since she still wasn’t used to getting up so early to help out on the farm. And because their time schedules all seemed to be shifted back about three hours compared to Pidge’s typical day to day activities at work. It was hard to get used to, though Pidge did like that their consistent work led to most everything being done for the day around eight in the evening. She’d thought that farm life would be constant, nonstop work and while true to an extent, there was a lot more downtime than she’d expected. Benita thought she shouldn’t be working at all on her vacation, but Pidge wouldn’t feel right about being an absolute freeloader.

But she did appreciate this chance for rest this time.

Pidge did feel a little tired and very sore after all the work she’d put in the past few days, and she took her time scrubbing the scum off her skin in the shower and letting the tepid water crawl into her muscles and loosen them up. Manual labour was a lot of hard, gruelling, and neverending work and she’d developed a strong respect for farmers everywhere.

By the time she’d moisturised her skin, slipped on her giant t-shirt and tied her hair up in a towel to dry, the sky was starting its slow descent into night. She had a message from Keith telling her to contact him in a few minutes, so she grabbed her tablet and crawled out the window to climb up to the roof. It was a definite exercise in patience to figure out the best way to get to the roof without getting the towel on her head yanked off, but she managed to get up to the crest where she settled in for a brilliant view.

Honestly, Pidge had never truly had an appreciation for sunsets until that random conversation she’d had with Lance all those years back. He forced her to watch one with him, and it had definitely changed her opinion about them. Since then, despite usually being stuck indoors whenever night fell, whenever she had a chance, she’d made an effort to watch the sun set. A million sunsets happened every day, but no two ones were alike, Lance had said years ago, and he was right.

This one was no exception and sitting on the roof had given her a front row seat to the fiery inferno of orange and crimson dancing across the sky as the world fell into darkness. Seeing the rays of the sun dance as it disappeared in the horizon as if bidding her adieu was super relaxing. It had faded into a dark, rich purple that then tapered away into a midnight blanket surrounding her with twinkling stars glittering in the sky. The humidity was fairly high and the air tasted just a bit salty, but it was still very nice. Lance had said if he had some more time on another night, he’d watch the sunset with her one night, so she was looking forward to that.

Seeing all the stars come out to play just reminded her how much she’d really loved being in space.

Maybe Lance might think so too.

Pidge yawned as she worked on hacking a satellite to try to get a stronger signal and smiled to herself when somewhere on the ground she heard Benita scolding her sons for something reckless they’d done. She liked it here. Benita had been going above and beyond to make her first few days fantastic and Pidge was really grateful for the warmth Lance’s family exuded. They were fun to be around, and she could definitely see where Lance had gotten his carefree, chill attitude and selfless desire to help other people from.

She also learned why he used to be a guy with absolutely no boundaries. His brothers were absolutely at fault, though she thought it was utterly cute that Lance had probably picked up their behavioural traits because he’d wanted to be like them. It was funny seeing him being treated as the baby even when he was almost twenty-five. But honestly, she knew the feeling.

Once the baby of the family, always the baby of the family.

Pidge frowned as she tried to check her work email, but Joyce must have done something to her system because she kept getting a stupid error message each time. She tried to bypass the wall, but Joyce was too thorough, and she knew all of Pidge’s hacking tricks and had effectively locked her out of anything remotely work related. It pissed her off. Pidge sent a message to Matt telling him that she would be dismantling Joyce and then another angry one to her mother letting her know she was not pleased with the changes she’d made to Pidge’s under garments.

Semi-annoyed, Pidge opened up a channel to communicate with Keith, and after a few minutes of a lag, a holographic screen opened above her tablet and Keith’s face appeared, blank as usual, but he didn’t look particularly bothered by anything.

_“Pidge,”_ he said in greeting as he yawned.

“Hey Keith. Shiro told me there’s a planet somewhere that apparently worships your hair as a deity.” Pidge snorted. “How does it feel for your hair to be a god?”

He sighed and rolled his eyes. _“I told him not to mention that.”_

“Hunk mentioned it too a little while ago. Anyway, when’d you start wearing braids? It’s very cute. Alien chic, if you will,” she said in a teasing tone.

_“Ezor thought it’d be a necessary change of pace…”_ His cheeks looked like they had a faint blush on them as he took hold of the long plait and held it in his hand. _“Last mission… uh, apparently every time I turned my head my ponytail slapped everyone in the face.”_

“Hm. Good call, then.”

Pidge thought it was a really good call, especially considering his hair was mid back. Last she’d seen him, he’d been wearing it in a high ponytail. She was going to miss the pony. She and Hunk had had a field day calling him every samurai nickname in the book.

_“What happened to your hand?”_

Pidge looked at her right hand, covered in so many bandages and still stinging when she fisted her hand or stretched the skin. “Lance #4 got a little aggressive. Perks of the job, I guess.”

Keith’s brows furrowed in utter confusion. _“What?”_

“She’s a hen.”

_“Named Lance #4?”_

“Apparently Nadia got to pick their names when they were born years ago and she named all six after her favourite uncle.”

Even Keith had to laugh at that, though he cleared his throat quickly and tried to get back into business mode.

_“Okay, never mind that. We’re about ten doboshes from our next destination so you’ll have to make this quick,”_ Keith continued. _“I’m not quite understanding why you need to collect quark matter from Kosmo. Does it have to do with the blood you needed from me? For that Purple Flu thing?”_

“No, that’s still being tested. This is a purely selfish desire in my pursuit of science and knowledge, Keith,” she lied, pretending like it was such an obvious answer he should have expected it. She was glad he wasn’t nearby because he’d probably be able to tell she was hiding something. “Kosmo is an unexplored being with ample capabilities that I must absolutely dissect.”

_“Come again?”_

“And by that, I mean examine.” Pidge gave him a cheesy grin. “Analyse. Investigate.”

His eyes narrowed playfully. _“Pidge, if you kill my wolf…”_

“I would never do that to Kosmo. He’s as near and dear to me as Bae Bae is. Trust me. If I did anything to bother him, he’d let me know by using those chompers.”

Keith shook his head. _“Alright… I have no idea what the hell the purpose of this is, but history has taught me not to ask you any questions I’m not prepared to know the answer to.”_

“Smart man…”

_“How’s life on the farm so far?”_ Keith asked. _“You know, aside from getting your skin pecked off. They working you hard?”_

She contemplated what she’d done in the past couple of days. Although Lance was giving her less and less help with each day, he still stuck around while she mucked the stables and he was still helping her figure out milking tricks. Kaltenecker was used to her, so it was easy, but one cow was fairly old and very crabby and more than once, she’d moved around while Pidge was trying to milk her. And then when Pidge had finally managed to get a decent stream going, that old cow kicked over the pail and mooed in triumph. Lance had cracked up until she’d threatened him. But aside from the milking, most times, she was either relaying messages to people here and there, transporting tools and bales of produce, or watching processes so she could understand the way things worked on the farm.

Pidge leaned back on her elbows and looked in the near distance as the work on the infrastructure of the barn they were rebuilding was being ended for the day and tools were being put away. Pidge was told they’d probably need her help when they were doing the roofing since her light weight would be a safer choice. They were shifting the location to the spot beside the original barn, and in the first barn’s place, they would be rebuilding a smaller storage barn for hay since apparently Lance’s grandfather had acquired a small, cultivated part of grassy land to use to produce hay. It was already a lot of work and they had to work fast because of warnings of inclement weather soon, so other projects had been put on a standstill while everyone collectively worked together to raise the barn.

“Not as hard as I could be working to be honest. Lance is helping me ease into the work slowly so I don’t get burned out though. And he started teaching me some colloquial Spanish so that I can talk more easily with the farm hands. There’s this really nice man named Jorge who teaches me cuss words whenever I come around to shuttle some of the crops. It’s great!”

_“You sound like you’re having a lot of fun.”_ Keith hummed in amusement, leaning back in his pilot seat and getting more comfortable. _“How long are you spending your vacation there?”_

“A month.” Although she hoped it wouldn’t take the full time to finish up Project B.A.B.

Keith didn’t respond at first, and she thought maybe he was focusing on his flying, but when she returned her gaze to him, his expression was pensive.

Pidge’s brows drew down. “What’s that look for?”

_“Nothing. I’m just wondering if you’ll be okay.”_

“What do you mean?”

_“I mean, you and Lance spending so much time together like this… You didn’t have an easy time getting over him. I’m just saying. You might be reopening a can of worms.”_

She appreciated Keith looking out for her, but her heartbreak had been years ago. She was decidedly no longer into Lance like that, and actually, she considered this time they would get to spend together a good thing. She’d seen him in a romantic light for so long—pretty much since the day they met—she hadn’t really had a chance to just be friends with him without reading into everything he said to her or did with her, and she was looking forward to mending their relationship into a proper friendship without that dumb crush lingering in the back of her mind.

Pidge’s nose scrunched up in distaste as she peeled off one of the bandages to look at the cut. “It may not have been easy, Keith, but I’m over him. Fucked all my feelings out of me.”

_“That’s just…”_ Keith looked very unimpressed. _“You have a lovely mouth, you know that?”_

“Oh, I’m _well_ aware…” She waggled her eyebrows and then cracked up hard when Keith’s face flushed deep with an embarrassed blush.

Making him uncomfortable was always a favourite pastime.

_“Th-that’s not what I meant!”_ he stammered, hands gesturing wildly. _“Don’t twist my words!”_

“My point is, I’m not particularly concerned with that because that hasn’t been a factor in a long time.” She wasn’t going to lie to herself and say she didn’t find him attractive, but it was nothing. “I don’t want anything more from him than friendship. I’m okay. Promise.”

_“Hn. Whatever you say, Pidge.”_ Keith’s expression softened, though the corner of his eyes creased in slight concern. _“Just be careful. I know you’re pretty self-assured and stable, but sometimes you underestimate how much you can actually tolerate, and I’ve seen firsthand what it looks like when you break down.”_

She was partially bothered by the reminder of that awful day Keith had caught her in a broom closet at the Garrison crying her eyes out. He’d refused to leave until she told him what was going on so she’d had no choice to reveal every event leading up to Lance and Allura going on their date and their kiss and becoming official. She’d hid it from everyone else, kept her smile on her face and devoted herself to supporting them 100% to try to pretend she wasn’t affected by Allura and Lance, but it had hurt.

And for a very long time.

For a while, she’d contemplated using Beezer to spy on them all the time in that morbidly curious way she tended to have that always made her feel worse than before, but Keith had kept her from doing anything crazy. The downside was that she’d ended up having to spill everything to Keith about her feelings for Lance. The upside though? She’d become true friends with Keith which in a way filled the friendship hole she’d lost with Lance when his life began to revolve around his relationship.

_“Pidge, I’m always here for you, yeah?”_ Keith said softly. _“You don’t have to lie. I would never judge you if all of this is giving you a hard time.”_

Pidge nodded and watched the ground where Nadia and Lance were ambling across the farm land towards the juniberry garden with their gardening tools. His niece was chattering about something as she lugged a watering pail and though Lance’s countenance would suggest he was at peace, she knew some of it had to be a façade.

“I promise I’m not lying,” she said honestly, her gaze serious as she brought her eyes back to Keith. “No pain whatsoever. And no ulterior motives. I honestly just want him to be happy again.”

After a few beats, Keith finally nodded. _“Alright. You let me know if there’s anything else you need. Or if you want to talk. Or whatever.”_

She smiled. Good old Keith. She’d never expected them to become such close friends after the war with the Galra, but she was glad they had. He was a very reliable snark buddy and her absolute number one confidante.

“Thanks, Keith.” Her comment was interrupted by a small yawn and she stretched her arms out. “I think I’m going to head off to bed in just a little bit. Have to get up early.”

_“Enjoy your vacation, Pidge,”_ Keith replied. _“And I’ve sent Kosmo on his way, so he should be there soon.”_

“Cool. I’ll talk to you in a couple of weeks. Goodnight. Or day. Or whatever time it is for you.”

_“Goodnight.”_

Keith chuckled, giving her a small smile as the holograph screen was sucked back into her tablet and the video call ended.

Pidge sat up straight with another yawn, carefully holding on to her tablet as she made the slow climb down the slope to that trusty tree. Keith brought up a good point about the time spent with Lance, but honestly, she wasn’t really concerned.

She’d meant what she’d said about wanting to make Lance happy. And she was pretty positive it had nothing to do with any prior feelings. She would know if she still had feelings for him, because she’d feel differently looking at him and being around him.

And she didn’t.

So she was 100% certain she couldn’t have feelings for him.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (update 2/3)

_“Pidge…”_

_Pidge looked around slowly at the blank white space, a frown marring her brow and confusion in her expression as she tried to figure out the direction and source of the voice calling out her name. It sounded like it was coming from everywhere around her, surrounding her, even though it could very well have been directly in front of her. And as if that wasn’t enough, she was pretty sure she was hearing Allura, even though it sounded nothing like the princess._

_She hadn’t been here long though. She’d been somewhere else, but she couldn’t remember and she couldn’t figure it out, no matter how much she wracked her brain for a possible answer._

_“Allura?” Pidge looked down at herself and was surprised to see she was wearing her old sweatshirt and those ratty grey shorts of her teen years. She ran a hand through her hair and sure enough, it was near tangled as it had always been during that time and much shorter. Weird. “Are you there?”_

_There was a mass of energy a little ahead of her in the shape of a woman and Pidge approached it cautiously, confused out of her mind. She would hazard a guess that that was Allura, but she didn’t know how she knew._

_“Allura? Say something.”_

_The weird mass cradled her face and rested its forehead against Pidge’s. Something else was said to her, but Pidge still couldn’t understand what she was hearing. It was all garbled, sounding as if someone had put those pixelated blurs on a camera to blur the lens._

_“What?”_

_Its mouth was moving again, but Pidge couldn’t hear it at all and then there was a glow and…_

Pidge opened her eyes in bewilderment, looking around as she took in her surroundings. She was completely shocked to find out that she was standing in the middle of the small grassy field in front of the McClain farm home on the slope. Not in bed at all. She wasn’t even sure how the hell she’d ended up here in the first place, and what made it worse was she was not a sleepwalker. She was still even wearing just the baggy shirt that served as her pyjamas and her feet were completely bare. The sun hadn’t risen yet.

“This is ridiculous,” she grumbled, heading towards the juniberry field when she felt as if something was calling her in that direction. Somehow, she _knew_ Allura was laughing. “I’m blaming you, Allura…”

She could see a figure crouched in the flowers, hunched over in front of the tree, and even though she recognised him immediately, it didn’t take a genius to figure out that Lance was tending to the flowers pretty damn early in the morning. She didn’t announce her presence when she walked through the small pathway to the area Lance was resting.

“Couldn’t be bothered to put pants on, huh?” Lance ribbed, though he was still looking at the flower he was checking the petals of. “Or shoes?”

His voice sounded a little gravelly, either from lack of sleep or maybe crying, she didn’t know. But he looked exhausted and all she was getting from him was fatigue. Pidge crouched beside him, resting a hand on his knee in concern.

“You’re one to talk.” He was still in his boxers, and his sleep mask was still on the top of his head. His hair was a wild mess, sticking up every which way like he’d tossed and turned all night or something. “Lance, did you get any rest last night?”

He didn’t respond to her question and she narrowed her eyes at the obvious answer to her inquiry.

“I think you need to stop messing with the juniberries and go to bed.”

“Relax. I haven’t been out here all night.” Lance rolled his eyes. “I _was_ sleeping. Somewhat. Somehow I ended up in the field after a weird dream so I figured maybe Allura brought me here.”

Pidge checked to make sure she wasn’t going to crush any flowers with her bum and then sat down fully on the ground. “That’s weird. Same thing happened to me.”

“You saw yourself back when we were in the Castle of Lions in your dreams too?”

She chewed on her lower lip in thought. “It’s possible, but I only really remember the ending though. What was yours about?”

“The first time we met Allura and Coran. Only it was like I was outside my own body watching me make an ass of myself. That’s probably just about the weirdest dream I think I’ve ever had in three years.” He finally met her gaze, mimicking her and sitting down fully on the ground. “It’s your fault, you know? Since you came here, I’ve been getting really odd dreams.”

“Whatever, man.” Pidge sighed, giving him an unimpressed look. “At least you can tell what’s going on. I keep _hearing_ Allura or something, but things are always so muddled and I can never remember what happened when I wake up.”

“…Do you think she’s trying to tell us both something?”

“Maybe…”  Pidge rubbed at her arms as she looked above her head where the leaves of the tree were rustling in the wind. Only there wasn’t even any wind anywhere else. “What if… what if we tried to connect with her that way we all had to do with those paladin bonding sessions, you know? Holding hands and tapping into each other’s minds?”

“You think it’ll work?” he asked curiously, though he didn’t seem opposed to it or anything. “Like we’ll be able to interact with her in a more tangible way than our dreams?”

“I mean,” she glanced away for a second, unsure, “worth a try, right? We don’t stand to lose anything either way.”

Lance scooted closer until he was sitting directly in front of her and then took her hands in his. They both closed their eyes and Pidge breathed evenly in and out, matching her breathing with Lance’s and opening up her mind to his. It was a little hard tapping into that complete openness and vulnerability again, especially since she’d never actually been too great at it to begin with, but she knew they’d found the link when she could feel Lance’s sorrow and his fear and the longing he had for something he clearly couldn’t find.

She could feel him poking around in her head too, leaving a distinct sensation that she immediately associated with Lance, solely because it had always been the strongest when they were paladins. She squirmed in her seat, a shiver running down her back and her brows furrowing in slight discomfort. It was kind of odd since she hadn’t experienced this in a while, but she’d forgotten how invasive it could really be.

“Do you feel her?” Lance muttered.

Pidge could somewhat feel two very faint, far distant trails, one mellow and the other scalding that she attributed to Hunk and Keith. Shiro’s felt like a solid warm presence in the back of her mind, though she couldn’t particularly connect to it anymore. And then somewhere in there, hidden behind the clutter was the very soothing one that in some odd way was surrounding her like a blanket. Pidge reached out to it, letting it consume her, overtake her, the back of her eyes prickling with tears as if Allura herself had seated herself next to Pidge and Lance and was holding both their hands. Lance’s hands were trembling a bit and she gave him a squeeze he returned.

The connection was muted at best, likely because she was kind of everywhere, but Pidge couldn’t hide the fact that she could almost hear her voice if she truly listened. As if Allura was calling out their names or something. She could almost see her excitable little grin, the twitching of her ears when she spoke, the sparkling of her gorgeous sapphire gaze.

It was almost like Pidge was thrown back in the castle, tinkering with some ten thousand deca-pheob old Altean gadget while Hunk raved to her about something new he’d baked, Lance bickered with Keith about who was the better pilot, and Shiro explained to Coran something about Earth. A simpler time before they all went through some very trying experiences.

And then on the small podium at the centre of the main room was Allura, smiling at them all and just within reach. She was glowing, looking like some ethereal being though her hair was short for some reason and she had a crown on her head.

Something in Pidge’s heart twisted sharply with melancholy, reminding her yet again of the persistent ache in her chest that there was someone missing in the bond.

_“We’ll talk soon, Pidge, but not now…”_

And all too soon, the connection dimmed and she could no longer really feel that steady glow she’d long ascribed with Allura. Pidge opened her eyes with a shuddering exhale, her vision blurred with tears. Lance sniffled, his own eyes red and a small track of tears rolling down his face. They stared at each other for a few beats, shaken up by the semi-vision they’d just seen.

What the fuck was that?

“Did you hear that?”

Lance frowned. “Hear what?”

“Nevermind… I-is this why you’re always in the juniberry field?” she asked, her voice shaking and no higher than a whisper as she reached out and touched one of the glowing marks on his face. “Because you can _see_ her?”

And apparently hear her.

“She’s never been that vivid while I’ve been awake.” Lance watched her as she poked at his face until the marks stopped glowing. When she sat back, he wiped the tears off his cheeks. “It’s only been in dreams…”

Pidge wiped her own eyes with her arm as she cleared her throat. “I think it was because we tried to see her together.”

Lance had a wistful smile on his face. “It was almost like she was there in person. Like we could practically touch her. Just think how easily we might be able to connect to her if we all were here trying.”

“Well you won’t have to worry about that in a few more weeks.” Pidge leaned back and looked around at the juniberry flower field, feeling comfort from the soft light they were giving off. “Because we’ll bring her back.”

He nodded, though out of her peripheral, she could see the anxiousness in his expression. “I hope it works.”

They sat in silence for a few short moments, just basking in the gentle aura of the juniberry field as they took in what they’d seen. Lance seemed more at ease than when she’d first joined him. The rueful look on his face still remained as he gently caressed the petals of one of the plants, but he didn’t seem too tense. It seemed like a good enough time to address some of the issues she had with what he was doing with his life. Maybe he’d be more receptive.

“It will work,” Pidge said confidently. “And then you can finally start to take steps to get your life back.”

Lance’s expression soured a bit as he lifted his gaze back to hers. “Wait, what do you mean?”

“That’s kind of a small reason why I wanted to bring Allura back.” Pidge chuckled nervously, scratching the back of her head. “I mean, I want her back too, and I want you to be happy. But I also want to snap you out of your funk so you can stop doing this whole woe is me thing. So hopefully this will be step one in getting Lance McClain back on his feet.”

Something about what she’d said clearly bothered him because he rose a brow, nonplussed.

“What do you mean by ‘getting Lance McClain back on his feet’?” Lance growled, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “Pidge, you’re not a fucking therapist. I’m tired of all of you shitting on the changes I’ve made in my life, and I know every time you guys meet up you talk about me. I told you I was fine, so can you shut up about this?”

Pidge blinked, annoyance crawling through her from his abrasive words. “What _therapy_? All I did was point out a truth: you’re stuck in mourning. And to the point that you’ve discarded everything that made you Lance in the first place.”

“Pidge,” he said, a clear warning that he didn’t want to entertain this conversation anymore. “Back off.”

But she was too frustrated to let this go now. He hadn’t wanted to talk about it then. He didn’t want to talk about it now. So when would they ever get the chance when he pushed aside any valid concerns brought up? This was three years running, and maybe she and the others might have been partly at fault for leaving Lance to his own devices to deal with his pain, but now that she was back in his life, it’d be very remiss of her not to get him out of this unfortunate cycle of grief.

“No, Lance. I’m not kidding. And I’m not backing off either!” Pidge continued, leaning forward and jabbing him in the shoulder. “What are you planning to do? Just wallow in your own misery until we bring Allura back? And then what? You get your girlfriend back and you have no plan for your future because you threw it all away?”

“I didn’t throw anything away.”

“Living on this farm sure as hell doesn’t seem like a future that the Lance that I know would have wanted for himself!”

“People change, okay?” he answered brusquely. “I needed to get away from all of it and you can’t blame me for choosing this new path considering we went through hell, alright? _I_ went through hell! I’m tired, Pidge!”

“Are you fucking kidding me?! Don’t give me that bullshit! You know damn well you’re restless and you want to do more! You’ve been giving off that vibe this whole time so I don’t believe for a second that you needed to get away and hide away on this farm for the _rest_ _of your life_!” Pidge shouted, but Lance hissed at her to shut up when a couple farm hands walked by dragging wheelbarrows and stared at them. Her irritation spiked tenfold. “Lance, I swear to God, if you tell me to shut up one more time—”

“I’m telling you to shut up because you’re too fucking loud!” Lance was undeterred by her threat, his own voice rising to cut her off. “I don’t need everyone in the world knowing my business—and especially not my family—so shut the fuck up and stop calling people’s attention over to us. Your voice carries!”

“And what of it! It’s not like it’s anything they probably haven’t thought before.” It frustrated Pidge, and she didn’t want to avoid this topic anymore when it was sincerely bothering her. “You’re a complete wreck! I know you loved her—we all did Lance—but resigning yourself to life like this, devoting yourself to an unfulfilling life you don’t even want is not okay! I don’t think Allura would have liked you giving up your entire life and anything you might have wanted to do with yourself to mourn for the rest of your life. She would have wanted you live for her but move on!”

“I _am_ living for her!” Lance shouted, his anger flaring and his voice breaking a bit.

“No. You’re living _her_ life! There is a difference!” Pidge swiped at some tears in her eyes, annoyed with herself for starting to cry and annoyed at Lance for being so damn hardheaded. Nothing she was saying was getting through to him and it _hurt_ considering how much he used to value her opinion. “And now you don’t know what you’re doing. This isn’t you! She would want you to follow your dreams and ambitions, you know? She would want you to do better!”

“This _is_ better than gallivanting around half-cocked and full of myself!”

“You’re a _hollow_ shell of your former self! Yeah, you needed some more humility, but you were a fucking teenager who was learning and there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be loved in the public eye. That’s just the kind of outlandish person you’ve always been! And yeah it got annoying sometimes, but we liked that about you. You can’t just change yourself all for the sake of a relationship!”

“I changed for the better and became someone who could be good enough for Allura,” he said sharply with finality as if he was dismissing her and this entire conversation.

“Then why is Allura showing you dreams of before everything went to shit? Of how you were before your relationship started?”

“You don’t know why either of us are having certain dreams. Just because you seem to have an issue with our relationship doesn’t mean that’s what Allura is trying to say!”

“ _Wh-what?!_ ” Pidge’s cheeks flushed hot in outrage. “I never said I had an issue with your relationship!”

“Then why do you keep bringing all this shit up?!” Lance barked, clearly exasperated.

“Because I have a problem with the way you decided to change! I have a problem with you losing that which made you Lance when those aspects of your personality were what were so special in the first place! Allura would probably have a huge problem with that too if she saw you!”

“No offence,” Lance said through grit teeth, “but you have no room to talk considering you hardly knew Allura. And above that, I definitely knew Allura better than you. So what grounds do you even have to speak for what she would feel?”

Whatever she’d been ready to say next died in her mind, and she stared at Lance in shock, her fury withering away into a sharp ache that had bothered her every day of her life since they’d lost Allura.

And he’d pinpointed it far too acutely.

She knew she hadn’t had a chance to truly get to know Allura as well as she could have. Pidge had never truly formed as strong a connection with Allura as she had with the others. And she regretted it every single day. She regretted the fact that they’d both been so preoccupied with their own endeavours and personal missions that they didn’t realise how close they truly could have been until it was a little too late. And by the time they’d found a true bond, Allura sacrificed herself and that was that.

But that was no excuse for Lance to say that shit to her.

“…Full offence taken, you asshole.” Pidge’s throat tightened and she hated how her voice wavered when she spoke. “And that’s beside my point anyway. You may have known Allura better than me, Lance, but I know _you_ better than she did.”

His brows lifted high on his forehead when her eyes welled with tears. “Pidge—”

“And I know you’re killing yourself inside. I know you have been since you started this dumb charade of hiding who you are. I’m not just going to sit here and let you do that, but I can’t help you if you don’t even want to help yourself. Be as much of a dick to me as you want; it’s still not going to change the fact that I’m right. And you and I both know that.”

She didn’t bother waiting for whatever bullshit he had to say next and shot to her feet. Lance stared up at her in remorse, but she ignored him and stormed away to the cattle barn, not daring to look back even a little. She had work to do anyway.

When she got to the barn, she slipped her feet into her work boots that she left outside and headed inside to get to work. Someone had already mucked and cleaned the barn and replaced the hay, but the steel buckets and strainers were still there, so she moved to go start the milking process. It would have been more ideal to go back inside and change first, but she just wanted to immerse herself in her work and distract herself from all these stupid emotions swirling in her head. She was more angry than sad, but she was sad because of how brutal Lance had been to her, which was affecting her a lot more than the fact he refused to listen to any of their concerns.

She’d known they weren’t necessarily in a fantastic place in their friendship and there was a rift they still needed to mend, but the past few days had been fairly chill and even showing a semblance of their former closeness, so it was a bit shocking to see that she’d been wrong. Nothing was resolved yet, but things would remain unresolved the more Lance refused to take any advice they all had to give. It wasn’t like she was trying to force him to live the way she wanted him to live, but why couldn’t he see that there was a problem with him giving up all the things he loved because he thought that was the best way to be with Allura?

“Maybe I really should stop bringing this up. Their relationship is none of my business,” Pidge uttered again, though every time she’d said that, she couldn’t help but wonder why it bothered her so much in the first place. “Am I being stupid, Kaltenecker?”

When she rubbed her cow’s neck, Kaltenecker licked her face, the bristles on her tongue a little slimy and feeling like jelly. It grossed Pidge out completely, but she chuckled, sniffling a bit as she wiped her face.

“Yuck. What are you, a dog?”

Kaltenecker mooed at her, looking apathetic, but Pidge couldn’t deny it did help her feel a little better. Honestly, it kind of felt like Kaltenecker was forgiving her for deserting her or something. Pidge leaned forward and kissed her nose, thanking her quietly before she let her go back to eating her hay.

Pidge got to milking, dragging her thoughts away from the current source of her bad mood and running her mind through the process for milking. She’d always been a fast learner and each day, the milking process had gotten smoother and faster. It _was_ a little lonely working on her own without Lance making fun of her mistakes or sometimes when he brought the battery operated radio and would sing along quietly to some Cuban oldies. But even the rude old cow must have picked up on her mood and wasn’t messing with her today, being on her best behaviour and letting Pidge pull milk without any mishaps on her part. Pidge thanked the old cow with a soft nose kiss too for allowing that temporary truce.

When she was finished with the last cow, she gathered the pail and made her way to the storage barn where she strained the milk into its clean collection bin, slow and steady just the way Benita had shown her. When she’d made sure there wasn’t a clod of manure and that most of the little hairs that had gotten in there were filtered out, she stored the bin in the large cooler. Now all she had to do was clean up the milking materials and set them back for evening milking.

Now that she’d done her morning tasks though, she’d have to figure out how to spend the rest of the day without talking to Lance, especially considering he tended to tag along with her tasks to give her tips or teach her how things worked.

Pidge shut the fridge with a sigh, slapping her hands together and deciding she’d worry about it after her shower and getting some food in her now grumbling stomach. She grabbed the pail and the strainer and started on her way out.

When she walked out of the storage barn, a figure resting against the wall by the doorway shifted and Pidge jolted at the sudden movement, crying out in surprise and swinging the pail at it immediately. It almost hit them, but they caught it with a yelp before it could make contact. Pidge wasn’t normally one to react to jump scares like that, but she’d been lost in thought and hadn’t expected to see anyone.

“ _Lance_! Don’t do that!”

“For fuck’s sake…” Lance wrested it out of her hands, and she could make out his cross expression more easily now that the sun was beginning to rise. “I know you’re mad at me, but seriously? A steel pail to the face?”

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” she grumbled, grabbing the pail from him and brushing past him to put her boots away and get on with her morning. “Although I wish I did. What do you want?”

“To apologise for hurting you.” She would have kept right on walking, but Lance stilled her by the shoulder. “I’m sorry, Pidge. What I said was uncalled for and I _was_ a huge dick. I didn’t realise that was something that was bothering you most about losing Allura. But even so, it shouldn’t have even come out of my mouth.”

“You weren’t completely wrong…” Pidge sighed and scrubbed a hand through her tangled hair. “We were both pissed off, Lance. I know it came from a place of anger. But I really hope you don’t make it a habit of lashing out any time I mention this topic. I don’t want to deal with that.”

“Well, I don’t want to deal with this conversation all the time either,” Lance responded, “but… I can admit you and the others have a point. Even if you brought it up in your typical caustic manner.”

“ _Hey_. C’mon.” She shrugged his hand off her shoulder and spun around indignantly. “Look, I’m sorry if you’re fed up with hearing the same thing from us all, but we’re seriously worried about you, okay? Like it or hate it, you needed to hear what’s what. Because friends don’t give up on each other. _Best_ friends don’t give up on each other.”

“I know,” Lance murmured, reaching out and chucking her lightly under the chin. “So thank you. For not giving up on me. And I really am sorry for hurting you.”

He was so sincere in his gratitude and apology that Pidge couldn’t help but look up at him in surprise. Lance had a _real_ smile on his face. Something warm and expressive that lit up his eyes. Something she hadn’t seen in so many years. Her heart squeezed in her chest and Pidge couldn’t help it. Her eyes welled with tears again.

“God…” Pidge laughed at herself for being so stupid. “You’re so annoying, Lance.”

It was because of the hope he was feeling.

It was _everywhere_. In his gaze, in his smile, in his heart. Unguarded, uninhibited hope for a happier future and for once, she didn’t feel like she was fighting him tooth and nail just to make him consider it.

Lance actually wanted to heal, and after three years of seeing him suffer from demons of his own making, it was a pretty intense moment of relief for her.

“Hey,” Lance said softly, pulling her forward into a hug and curling his arms around her shoulders, “why are you crying? I’m the one who’s getting shaken down by a gremlin a foot shorter than me.”

“It’s just Hunk told me that you needed a friend to be there for you and I feel like I deserted you.” She leaned against him, resting her forehead on his chest and clutching the front of the fabric with her free hand. His shirt reeked of sweat, but he was exuding comfortable warmth and despite the sticky heat of the early morning air, she didn’t want to move. “We all did when you needed us most. We shouldn’t have let you grieve by yourself this long.”

“Even if I’d told you all, there’s really nothing you could have done,” he said honestly. “I missed her too much. Still do. And seeing her in dreams makes everything feel so fresh, you know?”

“Lance…” She winced, knowing what she was about to say wasn’t going to sound so good. “It’s been three years. And I think you’ve punished yourself enough.”

She felt him stiffen.

“I’m not punishing myself.”

“Yes, you are.” Pidge pulled away from him so she could look him in the eye. “Forcing yourself to ignore your actual desires in life is tantamount to punishing yourself. And you’re doing a disservice to Allura’s memory too by claiming this is in her honour. And I know why you’re doing this to yourself. You’re thinking that it’s not right that you get to live your life however you want when Allura gave up hers and can no longer follow her ambitions.”

Lance averted his gaze, but she dug into the bond and to her displeasure, she found out she was right.

“That’s messed up, Lance.”

“How is that any different from you and Keith leading different lives and careers?” Lance countered, though Pidge was glad he didn’t sound particularly frustrated. “Keith changing the Blade of Marmora’s purpose in honour of Allura. And all those projects you’re working on at once, everything you’re doing to advance society when your interests don’t lie in medicine. I know you’re doing this because you’re trying to honour Allura’s memory too. But neither of you guys are like that.”

Pidge drew out of his reach and gave him a dry look. “I agree some of us went pretty sharply in another direction, but Lance, at least I’m building robots and working in tech. That’s what I love. And at least Keith is in space with the Blades and carrying out his mission to fix up space after the Galra occupation. That’s still important to him. You dropped every one of your ambitions to work on your grandfather’s farm. Can you honestly say you’re at peace?”

“I am, Pidge.” He lifted his gaze to the sky where the sky was starting to lighten to a brilliant cerulean. “Believe it or not, I’m comfortable where I am.”

“Okay then.” Her eyes narrowed. Being at peace could also mean resignation. It didn’t mean everything was okay. “But you can’t lie to me and say you’re happy. There’s something missing in your life. And I know it’s not just because Allura is gone. If you were actually doing what you wanted to in life, you wouldn’t be in this deep of a funk.”

Lance didn’t respond and Pidge sighed.

“I think we both need to remember that Allura wouldn’t want us to give up all our ambitions. But you’re in the worst place,” she continued, a little more gently, but when Lance still didn’t particularly react, Pidge grabbed the bottom of his face and forced him to look at her. Lance was definitely irritated by the manhandling. “We’re going to get Allura back. So don’t you think it’d be nice for her to come back to a happy, cheerful you?”

“I hear you. So let go of my face, please.” Lance rubbed his assaulted cheeks when she let go, but if he tried to ignore her again, Pidge was going to do it again. “Allura gave up so much for all of us. Making this sacrifice to spread her message is small scale compared to all that she’s done. I just want to do right by her.”

“I know the feeling. That _is_ why I’m running myself ragged to help fix Earth.” Pidge smiled fondly, glancing down at the small pool of leftover milk she had to clean at the bottom of the pail. “I don’t know, I guess I wanted to be like her in some ways too. There were times I had a tendency to be selfish in the past and she gave and gave right down to her last breath. You weren’t wrong in that corn maze, you know? I do feel just a bit lost. But I also know that I’m at least still enjoying parts of what I do. And that’s because I didn’t give up everything I am.”

He nodded slowly. “You know… maybe she _is_ trying to tell us not to lose who we are.”

A gentle breeze blew around them and they both turned their gazes up at the sky, somehow knowing exactly what it was and what it meant.

“People are going to start spreading rumours that this farm is haunted because of her,” Pidge snarked.

Lance chuckled to himself, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “Start? It’s already happened.”

She could just imagine Allura scaring the crap out of visitors for her own amusement.

“Lance. It’s up to you if you want my help figuring yourself out,” Pidge said sincerely, chewing on her lower lip a bit anxiously as she stared up at him, “but I’m here if you need me.”

“Yeah.” He gave her a soft smile. “You being around is enough. Thanks.”

Pidge fought the blush threatening to rise on her face with every part of her being. But that still didn’t change the fact that her heart was thrumming loudly in her chest.

“We’ll both make an effort to be _us_ while still honouring Allura’s sacrifice.” She held out her pinkie. “Deal?”

He hooked his pinkie with hers with a nod.

“Deal.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (update 3/3)

True to Keith’s word, Kosmo arrived the very next day in a Marmora pod in the middle of one of the grass fields in the middle of the night and made such an insane booming noise that rattled the earth and set off all the animals into screaming.

Needless to say, most everyone was not pleased and Pidge and Lance apologised profusely for Kosmo. The wolf had seemed unperturbed by the ruckus he’d caused, but Pidge honestly was happy to see him healthy. And having him around reminded her of curling up with Bae Bae when she slept.

Well, at least until she’d woken up on the floor because his gigantic body had taken up all the room and shoved her right off during the night.

Pidge didn’t get a chance to start immediately on her tests with Kosmo because she’d spent the first part of her day doing her typical appointed tasks and then had to spend the next chunk keeping Kosmo away from the cows when they let them out to roam. Nadia wanted to play with him after that, and Pidge couldn’t really say no when the girl’s eyes looked so excited, so Pidge had acquiesced. Besides, the field she wanted to use had all the cows, so she figured she’d wait until they brought them back indoors. She’d ended up using the time to tweak the program she’d coded on her tablet to measure Kosmo’s movement.

“So uh, what are you doing again…?” Lance asked in confusion, hovering closely over her shoulder as he watched her mess with the hologram coming out of her tablet. Some things never changed. “And do you really need me here if you’ve got it under control?”

“Of course I need you. You’re my lovely girl Friday,” she drawled, not taking her eyes off of the diagram as she pushed her work glasses up her face. The work on the cattle barn had stalled since Marco had to go pick up some more U-brackets, so Lance had come up to Sylvio’s room to keep her company while she worked on her designs. He’d even been nice enough to bring her a sandwich and something to drink since she’d missed lunch. “And I’m tweaking a program I made a while ago to detect the amount of quintessence in objects from space to determine how safely it could be extracted. Only now it’s going to track quark which I’ll install in my glasses too so I can visualise the shifts as if they’re a heat signature.”

He sighed, not amused by her comment. “Still don’t get the purpose.”

“Think about it like a speed gun in baseball.” Pidge set the parameters for her graph. She was so glad she’d brought her hologram tablet along with her. It was interactive and suitable for smaller projects, otherwise she would have to be making all of this by hand and since she’d only managed to bring the bare minimum for the time travel capsule she would have to make, she didn’t want to waste her supplies on the experiments she was running. “I’ll record the level of quark matter surrounding Kosmo as he transports himself around various locations in the grassy field. And I’ll measure the shifts in quark matter against the polarity of the bending energy around Kosmo as he makes his jumps in time.”

“What are you looking for?”

Pidge shrugged as she rose from the desk chair and paced around the room, tablet in one hand, coffee mug in the other. “Not sure yet. But from my research I can deduce that bending energy needs to be negative to traverse time, so if my hypothesis is correct spikes in quark matter should correspond with a negative bending energy. And if that’s true, I can amass a lot of quark residue from Kosmo, create tech that can reverse the natural polarity of the energy and then I can use quintessence in one focal point to fold in time and open up a safe rift that will serve as our portal to travel to get Allura.”

“Hmm…” Lance leaned back against the desk, arms crossed in front of his chest. “Have you figured out where the alternate dimension is?”

“Pocket dimension,” she corrected absentmindedly, taking a sip from her mug.

She could practically hear Lance roll his eyes.

“Have you figured out where the damn _pocket_ dimension is?” he repeated.

“No, but that’ll be the hardest part. Locating her is why I wanted to talk to her. See, if I could connect with her, I might be able to get some information about where I need to start my search. I probably will have to find a way to harness some of Allura’s spirit and create a mechanism that can scale all of the universe to determine where she’s the most prominent.”

“I think you’re _way_ overthinking it, Pidge…” Lance scratched behind his ear, a frown on his face. “I mean, if we’re trying to find Allura pre-sacrifice, wouldn’t it make sense to go to the exact location we last saw her alive? If a pocket dimension is a save point, then that’s where it would save, right?”

She spun around so fast, she almost tripped on the little pile of clothes on the floor. “Altea! Of course!”

“Plus that’s where my marks start acting up the most.”

“That’s it! Lance, you’re a genius!” She almost jumped up and down, but Lance had anticipated it and snatched the mug out of her hand before the hot café ended up splashing over the both of them and especially on her tablet. She took a deep breath and calmed down a bit. “I’ll make some sort of metal detector thing that you can wear so that when we go to Altea, we can use how strong your marks react to pinpoint the best location to find the pocket dimension!”

Lance chuckled, watching her with a small smile as she scribbled the notes rapidly in her tablet. “Sounds good to me.”

She set her tablet back on her desk and pulled up a brand new holographic screen, labelling it for the locator and then getting to work figuring out how to design it so that it would react to Lance’s quintessence and then link it to a program she could create in her tablet that would show her the readings. This, she could create pretty quickly, so she’d do something simple with it. She had enough raw materials she’d brought with her to finish it up tonight.

“Are you good with something that looks like a choker?”

“Sure. I’ve been told apparently I make everything look good.”

“Someone lied to you…” she quipped, and then pointed backwards towards her suitcase. “Lance, do you mind checking in my bag to see if I remembered my soldering iron? I couldn’t see it in my carryon. If it’s in my suitcase, it’ll probably be at the bottom.”

“I’m not even surprised that you brought that.” Lance mused as he pushed off the desk to her suitcase. He tossed it onto her bed and she heard the zipper being tugged as he opened it. “But if you did put it in your carryon, of course they’d confiscate it. I don’t think they’d let you bring that on… the plane…”

“Lance? Did you find it?”

He didn’t respond for several seconds and she wondered if he was still looking around for it, but then he chuckled, something a little confused, and when she heard his voice, it sounded a little strained.

“I found something alright…” Lance muttered. “Man, Rachel was not kidding that every girl has their kink. Guess this one is yours…”

And Pidge froze, her eyes widening in horror as she turned around.

Sure enough, Lance was holding the fuzzy pink handcuffs in his hand, but he was staring at all the lacy bras and panties and the nighties at the top with a weird look on his face.

“My mom packed that!” Pidge quickly tried to explain, rushing over and slamming the top of her suitcase shut, her face burning so deep red she was positive she resembled a tomato. She tried to snatch the handcuffs from his hand, but Lance raised his arm and held it out of her reach. She refused to jump to try to grab it. She _hated_ when he’d used to do that to her. “Lance, cut it out!”

“Wow, I would have never taken you for the type to own stuff like this.”

“And what of it?”

“Nothing…” Lance glanced up at the handcuffs, that odd, pensive look on his face again. “I just never expected that from you.”

“Expected what exactly?” she said sharply, defensive.

“The whole…” He gestured to her suitcase, finishing awkwardly. “Lace, and uh… and the silky things.”

Pidge could feel her neck starting to flush too. “What’s wrong with me owning those?”

“Nothing’s wrong with you owning them. It’s more like… the why. And uh… why you brought it with you here.” Lance rubbed the back of his neck, though he was watching her with something akin to curiosity, but she couldn’t read his expression. “Considering what it’s usually used for. Not that there’s anything wrong with… you know, if you were trying to find someone…”

Man, she was really pissed at her mother for this mess she’d gotten her in.

Pidge sighed in exasperation but was glad when Lance dropped the handcuffs in her palm when she held her hand out. Pidge opened her suitcase and grabbed all the seduction pieces and then stuffed them all under the bed. While she went back to her suitcase to dig out her soldering iron, Lance was still watching her expectantly, as if he was waiting for a response. He would be waiting a _long_ damn time.

“I mean, it’s not like I can’t imagine it, I guess,” he continued on, though now she could clearly see he was trying not to laugh. “You’re, you know, beautiful in a nerdy kind of way. Some might even say hot in certain lights, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve uh… done some stuff. I guess I’m just a little shocked because you used to be so… so… not a _prude_ , but I didn’t think you were interested in s—”

“Lance, oh my God, stop talking!” She yanked her soldering iron from the bag and turned away to face her diagram.

Pidge couldn’t even look him in the eye.

This was the singlehanded most embarrassing thing she’d ever experienced in her life. Not even second to that one time she’d walked in on her mom sitting on her father’s face on his office couch.

(Actually no. Walking in on her parents was still the worst).

“What? I’m just trying to make sense of this new development with Pidge 2.0.” His lips pulled up in a teasing smirk. “I mean first I find out that she has a hand kink and then she makes crude sexual jokes and now apparently likes to be restrained. It’s kind of hot.”

“I fucking hate you.”

He laughed. “But seriously, when did all _that_ happen with the fancy underwear?”

This was not a conversation she ever wanted to have with him.

She stared daggers at the holographic screen. “Lance, I don’t really want to talk about this.”

“That’s fine…” He yawned obnoxiously, pushing her suitcase over so he could plop down on the bed. He stretched his legs out to the desk, effectively blocking her path to the door. And Pidge just knew if she tried to leave, he wouldn’t let her. “I’ll just ask Hunk and see if he knows anything. We all know he can’t keep secrets for shit.”

A true statement.

And even worse than that, Hunk _knew_ about some of her trysts because of Joyce’s damn blabbermouth. He would almost certainly spill the beans.

“You are so evil.”

“I just want to know what my friend has been up to. There’s a lot I don’t know about you.” She glanced at him over her shoulder and Lance rose a brow. “I mean, can you blame me? I found handcuffs in your suitcase. And considering the Pidge who I’ve always seen was a very _different_ person, this is a pretty big shock.”

“For the record, my mom bought those handcuffs as a joke. I’ve never actually used anything like that before. And I’m not different. I just didn’t tell you guys.” Pidge turned her soldering iron over in her hand. “Like I’ve mentioned, I dealt with certain changes in my life in my own way.”

“What happened?” he questioned gently. “You don’t have to tell me everything if you don’t want to, but we used to be pretty open with each other. I miss that.”

It wasn’t like she had to give him every single detail of every single hookup.

“…I guess I went a little crazy after we all went our separate ways, although I can’t say that it was always in response to something upsetting. At some point, it was even a little fun. Like a game to see if I could snag my next catch.” Pidge looked out the window at the small birds pecking at the bark of the tree. “But the catalyst was definitely because… well, my heart got broken by a guy I liked for a long time. It wasn’t his fault though. He never knew and he, uh, he had someone else he loved, so I tried to get him out of my head. Had a couple relationships, but nothing really has stuck.”

Lance didn’t say anything for a while but she could feel his eyes practically boring a hole in her with his stare, and she knew he wanted to ask her who it was. Pidge turned around to face him, willing her face not to flush from his unwavering gaze.

“I know what you mean,” he said instead, chuckling a bit, and it was an utter relief that he’d picked up on her discomfort and didn’t ask the question she knew he wanted to know. “It was Marco’s idea. Rebound sex. It never felt right, you know? I always felt like I was betraying Allura. Especially when she and I never actually ‘consummated our relationship’ as Coran put it. Well, not fully anyway.”

Pidge pulled herself up to sit atop the desk. “Lance. That’s not healthy. You can’t close yourself off from relationships out of a sense of duty to her.”

“I didn’t want anyone else, so there was no point in trying.” His lips twisted into a sardonic little smirk as he leaned back on his elbows on the bed. “And you can’t judge what’s healthy or not with your apparent string of one night stands to get over a guy who broke your heart who didn’t even know you liked him in the first place. At least I recognised the whole rebound thing wouldn’t work.”

“It was only the first handful of times I had hookups to get over him. After that, I was just living my life.” She messed with the fraying strip of wood on the edge of the desk. “Can you honestly blame me for liking the attention? I was never the kind of person who people noticed like _that_ —especially my crush—so when I started getting noticed, I went with it. But then somewhere along the way, the whole meaningless sex thing got a little old and I got busy so my social life died a little.”

Lance contemplated her quietly, his head tilted a bit to the side. After a few beats of his silent scrutiny, she started to get a little antsy, unable to figure out what was going through his mind or why he kept looking at her like that. And not as if she was a puzzle he couldn’t make sense of.

It was as if he was seeing her for the first time or something.

“Lance, what do you want?” Pidge could feel her blush rising on her cheeks. She was getting tired of him not just saying what he wanted to say. “Why are you staring at me like that?”

“No reason. I’m just kind of surprised at myself for never noticing how much you have changed since our paladin days.”

In his defence, he’d been pretty wrapped up in his own pain. “Just because I hooked up with some people?”

“No. But that too…” Pidge couldn’t really make out the expression on his face and then she realised he wasn’t so much looking at her face as he was at her general body. “It’s not a bad different. I like it.”

“…Are you trying to imagine me in the lingerie, Lance?”

“It’s just hard to picture you wearing something like _that_.” He chuckled and didn’t even have the decency to look sheepish about it. “Considering your typical style.”

“Okay, but tomboy or not, if I’m trying to seduce someone, I’m going to use the extra help.”

“I don’t think you need it,” Lance said in a lower tone, his gaze trailing up until their eyes met.

Pidge felt her whole body go hot.

And then Marco laughed from the doorway and they both jumped as they turned to face him, both their faces flushed. Pidge hopped off the desk almost at the same time Lance scrambled up to his feet and she turned to face her desk again, willing her red cheeks to cool it and her wildly thumping heart to calm down.

“Jesus. I _knew_ something was off with you two.”

Lance looked like he was suddenly very exhausted. “Marco, what do you want? We’re busy.”

“ _Yeah_ ,” he drew out the word, “I can see you’re about to _get_ busy.”

“We were just talking,” Pidge commented, turning around once she was sure she’d gotten her face under control, “about my tech project.”

“That’s not what I heard when I walked by.” Marco shook his head as he tsked at them. “I know you’re pretty blind, Lance, but damn, I didn’t think you were dense too.”

Marco’s expression was too knowing and mischievous as he turned to face Pidge, and suddenly she got a very bad feeling that Marco might have heard a lot more than just the last part of their conversation.

“I got the brackets, so we’re getting back to work on the cattle barn. Pa said we need you downstairs again, Lance.”

“Alright.”

Lance glanced at Pidge briefly before he left the room, but Marco didn’t leave yet, leaning against the doorway and suddenly looking empathetic.

“He’s not usually this dense, you know? But then again, he hasn’t been himself these past few years, so who knows?”

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” Pidge said, feigning ignorance.

“Yes. You are. You really wanted him to store his horse in your stable, huh?” Marco said, a slightly evil smirk on his lips. “Don’t even try to pretend. The guy who broke your heart. It was Lance, wasn’t it?”

“Even if it was, it doesn’t matter. The past is in the past.”

“Uh huh…” he drawled, unconvinced. “You know he’s gotten past that rebound stage, right? And despite what he keeps saying about devotion to Allura, I actually think in his heart he’s pretty much moved on from the relationship by now. But not in his head. He’s ready to start his life again, but I think deep down he’s scared. He just needs a small push in the right direction to recognise that.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“I’m just saying. His heart is ripe for melting by the right person.” Marco straightened when someone called for him to come help out from downstairs. “And you two get along frighteningly well.”

“We’re just friends,” she said staunchly.

“But are you~?” Marco sang. “Because from what I saw…”

“Look, dude. There’s nothing between us, and I don’t have time for this. Why are you so pressed about this?”

For the first time since she’d arrived at the farm, Marco’s goofy little antics dropped and a thoughtful look appeared on his face.

“I may make Lance’s life as hellish as possible on purpose because as his older brother, it’s my duty to torment him for the rest of his life, but believe it or not, I really want him to be happy,” Marco said honestly, a subtle sorrow in his voice. “We all do, and I don’t know if it’s you or maybe it has something to do with Allura, but ever since you arrived here, I’ve noticed some life in Lance’s eyes. And I’m hoping that this upward trend will continue on. He’s been through a lot of stuff. It’d be nice if he could finally just stop guarding his heart and just be himself again.”

Pidge couldn’t help her smile. It was touching how much the McClains looked out for their own. Even more touching was the fact that his entire family treated him the exact same as they had before he came back from their final battles all damaged and with a newly broken heart. Even though they were concerned about him, they gave him as close of a semblance to his previous normal life as they could.

“Don’t worry; he’ll definitely get better. I’ll make sure of that. I want him to be happy too.”

“I know _one_ thing that would definitely make him happy…” Marco eyed the underside of her bed where she’d haphazardly hidden the stuff, and Pidge’s face went red again when the smarmy smirk returned. “And you look pretty flexible.”

She flipped him off. “Aren’t you needed for the cattle barn?”

Marco laughed, leaving her with a wink before he spun on his heel and left the room.

Pidge shook her head and turned around to get back to work on her stuff. Marco may have had a point about Lance’s countenance improving day by day, but if Lance was seemingly getting better, it was because they were working towards a possibly reachable goal of bringing Allura back to life. He was getting the love of his life back, of course he’d be less weary. That wasn’t necessarily because of Pidge. Sure, she was the mastermind behind this plan so arguably, one could say it was because of her, but the source of Lance’s burgeoning joy was what would come at the end of their mission.

Either way, she had to watch out for Marco.

He was proving to be a lot more deviously sharp than she’d originally assumed, and he’d very quickly figured out who she’d been talking about. The last thing she wanted was for him to start dropping hints to Lance or something.

Kosmo suddenly poofed into the room, his tail and mane braided to perfection with white flowers intricately woven into the folds. He had a wreath of flowers plopped on top of his head. He looked a little fatigued, and Pidge couldn’t help but snicker at his plight.

“Did you have fun?” she asked sarcastically.

She was fairly certain Kosmo was giving her an identical dry look to Keith’s which was utterly amusing to her. She reached up and scratched behind his ears and mentally promised him that she’d figure out some way to give him a nice treat for being so well behaved. He nuzzled her head, and it warmed her heart that he was just as happy to see her as she was to see him.

“We have a few hours before we can start the quark experiments, so I’ll be working on something else in the meantime. But I’ll be ready in about four hours if you want to come back later. You can go explore, but stay away from the cows, okay Kosmo?”

Kosmo made a noise of approval and with an extravagant sparkle, poofed away.

Pidge rolled her neck and cracked her knuckles.

“Alright, let’s make that locator.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the more I write the longer this gets ★✿ ~(^◡^ ~)
> 
> (17.05.19: update 1/3)

Pidge let out a sleepy yawn, her eyes watering with tired tears as she turned a small screw in place in the metal choker. It didn’t look as polished as most of her tech did, but it wasn’t like there was anything sticking out that would cut into Lance’s neck. It would suffice for now as a preliminary prototype.

She held it up in front of her, turning it to and fro to make sure none of the electrical components or circuitry was sticking out either, but so far, everything looked okay. But the sun hadn’t risen completely yet, so it was a little hard to see through the limited lighting. She’d have to do a second check later on that day.

Pidge hadn’t wanted to take the locator with her in the cattle barn, so she’d climbed the roof to put the finishing touches on it. She hadn’t gotten much sleep, but at least she’d been productive. And if she was honestly speaking, there was nothing more satisfying to her than finishing up on some work in lieu of sleep. And the fact that she’d been able to accomplish finishing up the choker in just one evening had her excited about the rest of what she could build and how quickly she could get it done, provided she found spare parts.

She’d wanted to show Lance some of her progress, plus it would have made it easier for her to figure out the circumference by measuring his neck instead of estimating. But Lance hadn’t been available to help her out that morning and belatedly, she realised she’d started anticipating his presence in the morning so a lack of his presence was noticeable.

Either way, she’d gotten her work done quickly and since all that was left was the coding so it could react to the intensity of what Lance’s marks gave off, she could get started on measuring Kosmo’s energy.

She would have a busy weekend ahead of her.

“Pidge? You up on the roof?” Lance called out from somewhere down the tree.

“Yeah,” she responded, perking up when she heard his voice, though her grin turned into a concerned frown as she watched the tree leaves rustle and heard the branches creak ominously. “You sure you won’t break the tree coming up, Lance?”

“Not entirely…”

A few seconds later, Lance pulled himself halfway up the roof with a grunt, though he was wincing the slightest bit and he had leaves and small twigs caught everywhere in his hair. It was hard for Pidge to shimmy up the tree. She couldn’t imagine how much harder it would be for Lance. He was decidedly taller and definitely had long limbs. It couldn’t have been easy to manoeuvre through the tight cracks and spaces.

She watched him struggle to get up on the roof, her lips folded in as she fought the urge to laugh.

“You know, a little help would have been nice.” When he finally got his legs on the roof, he crawled up to her slowly, a partially annoyed look on his face. “We’re not all the size of fifth graders.”

“I’ll push you off the roof, Lance,” Pidge threatened, though the bite was broken by her yawn.

He snickered to himself and settled beside her, laying back and resting his elbows on the ridge. “Haven’t been up here in so many years. I forgot how amazing the view is.”

“You just missed the first break of light in the sunrise.”

He made a noncommittal noise in response, and Pidge idly picked out the leaves in his hair as they sat there in silence. Day began to fully break, the sun lifting higher and brightening up the sky with each minute passed. In the distance, farm hands were occupying their time singing and chatting and laughing while they brought out tools to fields. She could just make out Lance’s father directing the beginning of work on the barn for the day.

Everyone was working much harder that day to prepare the entire farm since apparently the dregs of the hurricane were supposed to hit them in a day or so. The air was already cloudy, sticky, and a little grey with the onset of the storm though, and Pidge wondered if the rain would hit a little sooner.

“Do you mind if I size the locator collar real quick?” Pidge yawned again, longer this time.

“You’re already done making it?” Lance eyed her, partially amazed, but also a little concerned. “Did you even go to sleep last night?”

She shrugged, shifting a bit to wrap the arms of the choker around his neck. “Not really.”

“And you got on me for not getting rest.”

“No, see, _you_ stayed up because you chose to talk to Allura. I had no choice but to stay up because Kosmo’s snores could wake the dead.”

“Wow. Pot, kettle,” Lance drawled, giving her a completely unimpressed look.

“Do you really want to irritate the person holding a metal choker against your neck?” Lance’s lips quirked up in amusement though he rose a brow. “And I don’t snore that loudly.”

She took her mini screwdriver and made a nick in the metal to determine where she would set the clip to tie it off. All in all, she’d done a pretty damn good job of guessing. Not too much metal would be lost as waste.

“Yeah, you do. You sound like a goose when your sinuses are backed up. We could always hear you from your room back in the castle.”

Pidge scoffed, moving the choker back to her lap. “I may have nasal congestion sometimes but I do not sound like a goose!”

His smirk widened. “You know, Hunk recorded you once. We have proof.”

“If you’re going to spend the entire morning making fun of me, I’m leaving to go help with the barn.” Pidge tossed him a dirty look and made as if to get off the roof, but he stopped her.

“Actually, I came up here to let you know Luis and I are heading over to a pig farm of an old family friend nearby to help out with some stuff.” He sat up with a small yawn of his own. “I figured you might want to come along.”

She frowned. “I was supposed to help with the roofing today.”

“They’ll be alright without you for an hour or two,” he responded, beginning his own descent down the roof to get back to the tree. “It won’t be all day. It’s a pretty nice place. Might be good for you to get away from the work here for a bit. I know things start to get tedious for you when they’re too repetitive.”

“Yeah, I guess. Okay, I’m up for an adventure.”

“I have to go get some gas for the truck,” Lance informed her as he carefully lowered himself off the edge so he was standing on the closest branch. “But we’re leaving in about an hour if you wanted to grab some breakfast right now.”

With a salute, he made his way down the tree and shortly after, Pidge also climbed down from the roof to get back in Sylvio’s room. She’d put the finishing touches on the choker later. Pidge didn’t take too long getting ready, taking a quick shower and then layering herself with some extra strength, heavy duty sunscreen. Despite the slightly overcast nature of the day, it was still stifling hot—even more so with the thickness of the air from the impending storm—so Pidge went with shorts and a tank so she wouldn’t feel like she was dying in heat and tied a bandana on her head to protect the strands of her hair. To her displeasure, she’d noticed some parts of it were slightly lighter because of the sun.

By the time she put her tablet and other possible tools in her satchel and headed down to the kitchen, only about fifteen minutes had passed. Marco was skimming a car magazine at the table with Nadia pointing out which ones looked the prettiest. Luis seemed to be packing up some fresh juice in a cooler on the counter and making sandwiches.

“Morning,” Luis said congenially and she waved when Nadia said her name cheerfully and Marco gave her a small nod in greeting. “Lance told me you’d be joining us today.”

“It sounds like it’ll be fun. Will there be enough room for me?”

Pidge fixed herself a plate from the spread, helping herself to some bread, eggs, and ham. There was some fresh squeezed lemonade someone had made and Luis poured her glass. She thanked him, and took a seat at one of the stools of the island to tuck into her breakfast.

“It might be a little crowded in the truck,” he admitted, “but the farm isn’t that far so we won’t be squished for very long.”

“Or you could always just sit on Lance’s lap. You’re small,” Marco piped up, signature smirk set in place. “Although that might not be the best idea now that I think about it…”

“Hey, _tonto_. Keep it PG. There’s a ten year old here,” Luis said in disdain, pointing the butter knife at Marco with a warning look.

Nadia frowned, looking between her father and uncle in confusion. “What’s wrong with Katie sitting on his lap? I like sitting on his lap. Uncle Lance doesn’t drop me and laugh like you do, Uncle Marco.”

“Well that’s a great question, Scrub.” Marco cleared his throat, his eyes lighting up in mischief as he glanced at Pidge. Pidge narrowed her eyes at him, already anticipating something wholly inappropriate, but despite the looks both she and Luis were giving him, he didn’t seem to care. Clearly, he had no sense of self-preservation. “You see if Katie sits on his lap, he’s going to have a little problem. Especially if you hit any bumps on the road.”

“Marco,” Luis growled. “This is your last warning.”

“A problem?” Nadia asked again, stuffing a large hunk of buttered bread in her mouth and then looking to Pidge for answers. “Do you know what he’s talking about?”

“There won’t be a problem,” Pidge replied evenly, fighting her blush and sipping the crisp, tangy lemonade in her glass to avoid further inquiry. “Because I won’t be sitting on his lap.”

Marco hummed, though he shook his head. “The problem is… how do I put this… the _barn_ will be raised in only a few seconds.”

For someone of his girth, Luis was surprisingly quick and quiet, and before Marco could escape his clutches, Luis had rounded the island and pounced, grabbing his brother and wrestling him into a playful chokehold. Marco cackled as he choked, trying to get out of the hold, but Luis refused to let him go. Nadia watched them boredly, and Pidge got the distinct impression this was just another day in the life of the McClain brothers.

“I can just sit in the cargo bed or something. I don’t mind,” Pidge offered.

Honestly, she just didn’t want to be squished up in a hot truck, sweating like a pig and practically dying because the ancient AC unit of that nearly busted old truck wheezed just to spurt out a little bit of the much needed cool air.

“Thank you for the _productive_ suggestion,” Luis responded, glaring down at his brother. “If you really don’t mind, Katie, I’m okay with that.”

Marco snorted. “I wouldn’t be fooled. You know Lance is going to join her back there and they’ll probably—”

Luis ground his knuckles into the top of his hair, giving him an aggressive noogie that had Marco yelping and lashing out to try to get out of his brother’s beefy arms. His lankiness stood no chance. With a sigh, Nadia rolled her eyes and took her plate of breakfast over to the den to watch TV.

Pidge finished off the rest of her breakfast quickly too, grabbing her bag and heading outside to get some of her work done with Kosmo. She didn’t have that much time before they would leave, but she figured it wouldn’t hurt to begin gathering some data, especially since she hadn’t had a chance to last night. She trekked down the beaten dusty path, kind of annoyed by the flying bits of dust that clung to her ankles and shoes as she walked. The cows were slowly roaming the grazing field as she approached, their tails languidly whipping side by side and an errant moo sounding in the air every once in a while.

She found Kosmo resting calmly beside Kaltenecker in the grass of the grazing land, though he lifted his head and stood when she stopped beside them. Pidge patted Kaltenecker’s back gently in greeting when the cow let out an apathetic moo, before she rose to her tiptoes to scratch Kosmo behind his ears. At first, she’d been concerned Kosmo might hunt some of the cows, but from what she was seeing, it appeared their shared experiences in space had probably made them something like close friends. At the very least, Kaltenecker didn’t look spooked being beside the wolf, and Kosmo looked relaxed resting beside the cow.

“You ready to work?” she asked him, and Kosmo licked her face, covering nearly half of it with space drool. She wiped it off with a slight grimace. Pidge didn’t mind doggy drool normally, but it was a little much. “We’ve got less than an hour, so I can’t do anything seriously, but I wanted to test out some stuff in my programming. Let’s head over to the open field.”

Kosmo teleported them over to the free field and then stood at attention while Pidge set her tablet down in the grass, opening up a huge holographic screen and setting up the parameters for her measurements in a series of small graphs and then one that combined all of them. Pidge liked how much free room there was to move around on the farm. It definitely beat the crowds of the city, and this was the perfect environment for her to do her experiments without obstructions.

She slid on her work glasses, observing the general quark signature of Kosmo and then marking down all of his measurements at equilibrium, the levels of any quark, the polarity of the bending energy surrounding him, how he was using quintessence to break through time. When everything was set up, Pidge attached a little microphone to one of the hairs of his mane.

“This is a microphone that I repurposed to amplify frequencies.” She wasn’t really sure why she was explaining everything to Kosmo, but he was listening fairly attentively, and honestly, he’d always given her a vibe that he was more human than wolf at times. “It’ll be helping me to capture the levels of energy I’m observing from up close while I’ll be using my glasses to catch it from afar. And then all of these will work together to fill up my graph.”

After everything was set in place, she instructed Kosmo where to start and asked him to just start with small jumps at roughly three metres apart until he reached the other fence and then to come back in the other direction. He looked to her for his start sign and Pidge gave him a thumbs up.

As Kosmo began his skips through time, her system logged the information. Pidge was pleased to find that her hypothesis had indeed been correct. Every time he jumped through time, the quark matter would spike sharply, and for the duration of his disappearance until he reappeared, the bending energy around him would go negative.

The thing that did surprise her though was that it wasn’t in the negatives the entire time he was gone.

If she had to describe it some way, it was like the reverse of what an action potential graph looked like. A slow approach to a threshold followed by a very sharp dip down into the negatives to a certain point and then a rapid rise into the positives, going past the equilibrium level before slowly approaching equilibrium again. And then repeated.

She would have to zoom in on and observe the split second of the jump more closely to figure out what was going on there, but at least she had confirmation that she was heading in the right direction. From what she was seeing, she was fairly certain that there had to be a minimum amount of quark matter needed to achieve certain distances in the jumps. Kosmo was fairly good about trying to travel three metres each time, but some jumps were shorter while others were longer and each time, it seemed the amount of quark matter his body released was proportional to the distance jumped. And above that, she would need to figure out what was going on while he went in the time rift, which was important so that once they’d travelled to get Allura, they wouldn’t get ripped to shreds or sucked into a dark time abyss or something, never to be found again.

It was _fascinating_.

It also made Pidge wonder how these calculations could be affected when he was carrying one of them along time with him. Were they “absorbed” essentially, carried along as if an extension of Kosmo? How did the laws of nature compensate the energy needed to push a human through time since they did not have those capabilities? How did humans, whose bending energy remained positive even in a distortion of time, not get twisted into a pretzel moving through a rift in time?

Kosmo had to be travelling to the future and back so maybe that played a role in it, but there were no definitive answers and it only piqued Pidge’s interest more. Plus, weirdly enough, there were no measurements of quintessence anywhere, which meant the energy source he used was self-produced, and not gathered around him by some magnetic pull or something. Unlike Kosmo, humans would need a source of outside energy to travel through time, but introducing an external source could throw the time rift out of balance and cause a singularity that would destroy everything.

It made everything wholly more complicated, and Pidge felt a grin growing on her lips. She couldn’t use quintessence easily, which would make this more challenging, and _that_ was going to be a lot of fun to figure out.

Science had always been fun for her, but she hadn’t had a chance to do wild, unheard of experiments like this in a while, and she could feel her excitement bubbling up. As strange as it sounded, she got such a hard on for unexplainable, challenging science experiments and this was definitely scratching an itch buried deep inside her. She felt so energetic; her earlier fatigue pretty much completely dissipated.

“Kosmo,” Pidge called out when he reappeared. He stopped and cocked his head to wait for her instructions. “I need data during the time you’re travelling through the rift. Can you go longer distances for me, please? A kilometre will do nicely.”

Kosmo started again, per her instructions, jumping through time while she continued to record the information. Pidge wasn’t sure how long she spent watching the data, changing up his distances here and there, and trying to make sense of observed patterns, but she knew she would have stayed there much longer had someone not cleared his throat behind her.

“I didn’t want to interrupt, but we’re ten minutes over the time we needed to go,” Lance said.

She glanced over her shoulder where he was sitting on the fence watching them work. When she checked the time on her watch, she realised how much time really had passed.

“Shit… I wasn’t keeping track,” she muttered, pulling off her glasses. When Kosmo popped back into the present, she put two fingers in her mouth and whistled to get his attention. “Kosmo! We’ll stop here for today. Thank you for all your help!”

“You’re really enjoying yourself, huh?” Lance questioned, tilting his head curiously, a small smile playing on his lips. “Reminds me of how you’d get about random space tech.”

“You don’t understand though!” she responded excitedly, saving all the data and then closing out the holographic screens. Kosmo poofed next to her and she made quick work of removing the microphone. She stuffed the rest of her work items in her satchel and walked with Kosmo over to Lance. “There are so many intricacies and new mysteries to solve and no one has ever attempted anything like this! There’s a whole rich world of new information to discover and I’m going to be the one to do it and I’m so fucking turned on right now.”

“Yeah, I can tell.” Lance laughed, rubbing Kosmo’s snout when he trotted up to him. “Only you would actually get aroused over a science experiment of all things.”

“Oh for sure,” Pidge drawled, opening the gate of the fence and walking to the other side as Lance swung his legs around and hopped off his perch. Kosmo poofed away, and Pidge wondered briefly where exactly he would run off to for such long periods of time. “You have no idea what controlled variables do to me. And holy shit, don’t even get me started on qualitative observations. And if you top it all off with a fantastic analysis of the data, I get so unbelievably wet.”

“You’ve gone full nerd, Pidge,” Lance joked as they ambled along back to where the truck was parked in front of the house.

“Not even close. If I went full nerd you wouldn’t understand a word coming out of my mouth,” she retorted, before picking up the pace and glancing at him over her shoulder. “We should probably hurry it up, though. I kept you all waiting long enough.”

He agreed and they hurried over to the truck where Nadia and Luis were waiting.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (17.05.19: update 2/3)

“There are a lot of farms here…” Pidge mused aloud, flattening her hands on the roof of the truck to steady herself as she looked around the dirt road they were driving down. She was surprised by how many farms were in this one area.

When they’d driven down the first day she’d arrived, it’d been late so she hadn’t had the chance to truly take note of the vast array of farms. All boundaries pretty much defined by extensive plots of planted corn.

“We’re a community. We pretty much share all of our goods with each other. For some, the farms are for providing the product for their secondary businesses. Like them right there?” Lance pointed to the arch of entry for a farm they’d just passed. “They’re the ones who supply most of the coffee we drink. But their oldest son runs a café about two hours away closer to Havana, so most of their coffee is for the business.”

“Do you all have a stick to basically one product per farm kind of thing going on?”

“Most of us here do, especially those of us with livestock. At our farm, we do grow some crops, but that’s mostly for our own family and workers, and we’ve sold eggs before, but we’re first and foremost a dairy farm.”

Pidge nodded in understanding, returning to watch the scenery pass them by, the wind whipping the bottom strands of her hair around, and the music from the radio drifting out the windows of the truck. It was pretty fun. Standing up in the back of a truck while driving along a bumpy road was something Pidge wouldn’t ever have considered doing in the city.

Marco had been right about Lance deciding to tag along in the cargo bed, and he’d made sure to give Pidge and Lance a very lewd gesture with his fingers before they’d driven off. Lance had decided to ride in the back, but it was mostly because they were transporting a few bales of hay and some corn for the old couple who owned the pig farm and he wanted to keep them secured.

Apparently, the owner of the farm had recently suffered from a minor stroke and wasn’t as mobile as before. They were starting to get very advanced in age and could only afford a few farm hands, not to mention they didn’t have any children to help them out. Most of the farms in the area had a rotating schedule to make sure to check on them every once in a while and help out as much as they could to do some cleaning up and small upkeep. They also tended to donate some of their goods so that the pig farmers wouldn’t have to worry so much about manual labour for food.

Pidge thought it was very sweet, and it yet again reminded her of the warm reception she’d received from the townfolk. She loved how the people she met here had such huge hearts and so much kindness. They were each other’s families, even if not related by blood and there was a true sense of community here in every way.

“Pidge, uh, maybe you should sit down,” Lance said, breaking her out of her musings. “This truck doesn’t shift gears very cleanly, and if we hit a bump, you might get thrown off, especially since you’re kind of small.”

She glowered down at him. “I’ll kick your shin, don’t think I won’t.”

Lance snorted. “Wasn’t a jab. I’m just warning you from personal experience when I was eight.”

Pidge was gearing up to respond, but the car suddenly jerked and jumped as Luis shifted gears, and they hit a small bump in the road just as he shifted again. Pidge hollered, flailing as she lost her balance, tumbling backwards, tripping on the handle of a rusted shovel before landing right in one of the giant bins of corn, the lower half of her legs hanging out and her arms squished against her side. Lance cracked up almost immediately, howling with laughter as Pidge tried to climb out, struggling especially because the terrain wasn’t smooth and they kept bouncing along on other bumps, each time causing her to lose whatever bit of leverage she’d gained to get out.

“What’d I tell you?” Lance was still laughing, resting his forearms on his knees and clearly enjoying her struggles to get out.

“You could help me, you know?!” she barked at him, her face flushing as she tried to free an arm to pull herself out.

“True.” He took out his phone though and snapped a picture of her with what could only be described as an evil grin. “Gotta keep the evidence though. For posterity. Plus, Hunk has got to see this.”

Pidge let out a pitiful groan. “If this is about the roof thing, I’m sorry, okay? Please help me out of this thing.”

He stood up carefully, reaching down so she could get hold of his hands. Once she had a firm grip, Lance took a step back and pulled her up in one fluid motion. Pidge was kind of surprised by how little effort it took him to yank her back up onto her feet. She stumbled forward a bit from the rapid motion and bumped into his chest before she regained her balance.

Lance snickered, helping to steady her until she was straight on her feet. “You good?”

“Yeah.” She looked up in relief, chuckling at how stupid this whole thing had been. “Thanks.”

 “We’re approaching the turn, you two,” Luis called out, his head leaned out of the driver’s window. “Might wanna sit down.”

They both quickly took their seats on their bales of hay, definitely wanting to avoid a repeat of what had happened. Plus, Pidge didn’t want to fall off the truck and break her arm or something.

Sure enough, Luis soon after turned into the pig farm and pulled up in front of a small, worn-down house that somehow looked like it was drooping. The painted wood of the outside had been scratched off in most places by now, leaving awkward zebra stripes of brown in between the aged off-white paint. There was an old woman standing by the small driveway and when she saw Lance, he hopped out to go greet her.

This farm was a lot smaller than the McClain farm, though she could still tell that a lot of care had gone into making this place as relaxing as possible. There were orchids and lilies bloomed everywhere near the house, absolutely beautiful and leaving a subtle sweetness in the air. It was very fragrant, a nice odour that reminded her of her mother’s lab. And also quite necessary, because she could also smell the pretty overpowering stench of the pigs. She was used to that manure smell from cleaning the cow stalls, but this was a bit more intense and seemed to hang in the air unmoving.

She followed Luis and Nadia as they exited the car to greet the old woman whose name was Luz. Her husband was currently fighting a summer cold, so they hadn’t had a chance to prepare for the storm. Luis and Lance were planning on doing all they could to make sure the old couple would be okay.

Pidge introduced herself in her somewhat broken Spanish, but the sweet old lady didn’t seem to mind, even wrapping her up in a hug and telling her she sounded great. She didn’t speak any English at all so Lance helped Pidge translate. After conversing for a bit—Pidge wasn’t sure, but it sounded like Luz was badgering Lance over why he wasn’t married with kids yet which definitely made her snicker—Luis gave her the food he’d prepared, and Luz excused herself to finish tending to her husband.

“I’m gonna go fortify the house and pig pen to make sure everything is sturdy and set for the storm,” Lance announced. He ruffled Nadia’s hair when she latched onto his arm. “If you help me out we can go visit the piglets sooner.”

“Alright!”

Luis nodded. “Katie can help me move the stuff then.”

Lance and Nadia walked up the steps of the house to go work on their tasks, and Pidge climbed back in the truck with Luis. He drove around through the small path towards the back until they were parked in front of a storage barn. There wasn’t much in there but a busted tractor, dried puddles of oil, some storage crates, and a few rusted tools with splintered handles or bent up metal ends. The smell of mould clung to the air too, and when Pidge glanced up at the corners of the roof, sure enough, there was mildew chewing up parts of the wood.

“I hope you don’t mind, but we’ll need to clean out the barn a bit before we move everything in there,” Luis said as he cut the engine and stepped out of the driver’s seat.

“No worries. I don’t mind.”

They started by unloading the bales of hay and bins of corn from the back. She grabbed one of the handles of a bin while he grabbed the other and they hauled it out of the back, grunting from the effort to not drop it straight on the ground. Together, they took everything off the cargo bed until they were neatly set aside by the doors of the barn.

After that, Luis took to moving some of the bigger things inside the barn out while Pidge took a broom and swept up some old corn husks and chips of wood or bits of lingering straw. While she hosed down the floor of suspicious brown stains, Luis walked around, testing the sturdiness of the wood and the roof for the storm. Gaps he saw between wooden slats, he filled with some wood filler, and finally, he drilled some wooden boards over the outside of the glass windows, just in case.

While they worked, Luis regaled her with old memories of summers growing up around the farms, of climbing trees, trips fishing in the lake, of birthing animals. Funny stories of his three youngest siblings running around naked in the mud and tracking it in the house and getting chased by their grandmother with her slipper or mixing spoon. How Rachel, Marco, and Lance were referred to as the ‘Troublesome Trio’ when they were kids because of their stupid antics like opening up their chicken coop and setting off a firecracker outside to watch the chickens freak out and fly out everywhere. (Which Pidge definitely stored for teasing material). Luis apparently used to hate being stuck at the farm in the summer, but now that he was older, he didn’t think settling down here would be so bad.

“Don’t tell me you were a self-proclaimed Casanova too?” Pidge asked him dryly.

Luis let out a belly laugh that nearly made her jump. “I missed my mom’s genes for that, thank God. I just didn’t want to be tied down to life on a farm is all. After the war though, I changed my mind. I just needed something simple. Something straightforward.”

She could understand that. Lance had said something similar during one of their arguments. It was a very calm environment, and with part of Allura’s spirit hanging around the McClain farm, a healing one too.

When they were done cleaning, they reorganised the small storage barn to have different areas for food, for tools, for the hay. Luis kept the tractor out to get to work on it later, which gave them more space to get to work.

By the time they’d finally gotten to work moving the corn and hay they’d brought to their places in the barn, Pidge was sweating profusely, her moist hair sticking to the back of her neck and sweating dampening her shirt. She would have thought an overcast day would bring about cooler weather, but it was substantially more humid. Plus there was no breeze, so the heat was forming some sort of film around her every time she stood still.

“So Katie. Lance tells me you’re a genius engineer,” Luis said, grunting as he dumped the corn from one bin into a large storage crate in the corner. “What’s your specialisation?”

“Computer engineering.” Pidge wiped her forehead as she set her bale of hay neatly in the other corner with the rest. “But I’m also well versed in mechanics and I have a fair amount of experience in aero- and astronautics. I guess you can add biomedical engineering to that list now too.”

They’d all been part of her curriculum back before the blue lion had kidnapped them and taken them into space, but being in space had definitely solidified her experience and knowledge.

He stacked the empty corn bin with the others and lugged a new one over to the crate. “Purple Flu, right?”

“Yeah, but truth be told, I’m pretty ready to go back to my old interests.” She smiled wistfully, heading back by the doors to grab one of the last few bales of hay. “There’s just something about space that always calls to me no matter where I am in life.”

“Lance is like that too…” Luis let out a small sigh, cracking his back before he dumped the bin of corn. “He was born when I was eleven or so. I’ve watched out for him for a long time, so I’ve seen his obsession with space grow. Whenever the ginger moustache guy—Coran, right?” Pidge nodded and he continued. “When he shows up to pick him up to take him to Altea, there’s always this look on Lance’s face. I can’t describe it, but it’s almost like excitement. He loves our farm, but Lance belongs in space. It’s been his dream since he was a kid. And I don’t believe for a second that he’s lost it.”

“That’s kind of what I’m working on.” Pidge winced when she tried to rearrange and make neater the stacks of hay and her knee was scratched up by the little straws sticking out of one bale. “I came here to get Lance to go back to being himself. I hate seeing him like this. We all do.”

“All of you guys have been amazing to my brother. He couldn’t ask for better friends.” Luis looked proud. “I know he’s all sulky and you might not be able to tell, but every time you all come here, I see a little more of his old self. So just like I told the others, thank you, Katie, for being there for him.”

She moved outside and picked up the last bale of hay, a guilty look twisting her face. “To be honest, I kind of deserted him for three years.”

“But you’re here now, aren’t you? And that’s what counts. I’m sure he feels the same.”

Pidge smiled a bit, giving him an appreciative look. She still felt bad for not checking up on Lance like she should have, but she was making amends slowly and surely.

“You know, Lance also told me you needed parts for some project for work. I run a small side business repairing tractors and machinery on farms and cars in certain towns.” He rubbed his goatee, a pensive look on his face as he picked up the empty corn bins and tossed the entire stack back onto the truck’s cargo bed. “I have a lot of clients who don’t want old parts from their machinery or broken down tools, so if you need scrap parts, I can go pick them up and bring them to our farm at some point next week.”

“Really?” Pidge grinned, feeling relief that he’d offered them up because she really wasn’t certain if she’d be able to find everything she would need to finish up her project. “Thank you so much! I really appreciate it.”

“No problem! Feel free to use whatever tools of mine you’ll need.” He laughed heartily, reaching into the passenger window and then tossing her a water bottle before grabbing one for himself. “I must say, learning all that I have about you has been pretty surprising for me. Truth be told, I thought you were twelve when I met you years ago.”

“Join the club,” she drawled, uncapping it to take a much needed gulp.

Wouldn’t be the first time she was mistaken as a teenager. Her first day working at the labs, a few of her colleagues had thought she was somebody’s teenage daughter visiting their parent at work. She didn’t _look_ like a tween anymore, but she never failed to catch some double-takes bartenders had when carding her and seeing her real age. And she was pretty sure most of them still believed she was using a fake after that.

“My apologies,” he responded sincerely, though his shoulders were shaking while he finished his own water. “It’s just my daughter is almost your height now and she’s ten.”

“Ever consider the fact that I’m not abnormally short, but that maybe you McClain beanstalks are growing too tall?”

She gave him a playfully annoyed look, but honestly, better height jokes from Luis than the sex jokes from Marco. Luis was very chill, and though she didn’t doubt he probably also ganged up on Lance with Marco on occasion, he was definitely the calmer one. He was probably the one stopping his siblings from destroying their home when they were younger. Well, either him or Veronica, who was as no-nonsense as they came.

When they’d finished their last inspection of the storage barn, Lance ambled over from the back of the house.

“You checked the infrastructure?” Luis asked, opening the truck’s door and grabbing a giant toolbox from the middle seat. “I’m about to get to work fixing up this tractor.”

“They’re all set. Luz already boarded up the windows. Pidge, you wanna come see the piglets?” Lance asked her with a smile. “One of their pigs gave birth about a few days ago. I think you’d enjoy it.”

“Sure!” She turned to Luis. “Do you still need my help? I don’t know much about tractors, but I might be able to provide some assistance.”

He waved off her concern. “Nah, don’t worry about it. Go enjoy the little porkies.”

After Luis told Lance that he’d try to be done in about half an hour, Pidge walked off with Lance, heading around the house back towards the front and towards a muddy sty with the mini shack. The stench got stronger to the point she could practically taste the manure, as did the loud, grunting snorts of the pigs, the closer they approached. She could see just how big the adult pigs were since Nadia was in the pen nearby them, and honestly, both she and Pidge could ride one of them together and probably still not be too heavy. And Pidge couldn’t help but be grateful that the McClains handled cows.

Pidge wasn’t entirely sure what she had expected the babies to look like when they approached the gate, but eight teeny tiny snorting and squealing pink and black pigs trying to get milk from their mother was not it. They were absolutely the cutest things she’d ever seen, and Pidge made a little choked noise when the smallest piglet of the bunch, the smallest most itty bitty baby she’d ever seen trotted over to the fence and stared up at her. It was so cute and tiny and pink with a ring of black spots around its rump and back and one on its eye and Pidge was about to have a massive freak out. Her heart felt like it was swelling to ten times its actual size and she couldn’t help but swoon.

“Oh my God…” She stooped, reaching carefully into the pen and holding one finger out to the lone piglet. It opened its mouth and started trying to chew on her finger, and Pidge damn near died, squealing over how cute it was. “Look at this little cutie. He’s just the cutest little oinky baby!”

Nearby, Nadia started giggling while Lance stared at her like he couldn’t believe what had just come out of her mouth.

“Do you wanna pick him up?” Nadia asked, sitting next to the tired, lounging mama pig and patting her side gently.

“I can pick him up?!”

Nadia asked the farm hand tending to another grown pig something in Spanish and when she nodded, Pidge scaled the fence of the pen and carefully stepped down in the mud, cautious not to step on a wandering baby pig. Her sneakers sunk into the slimy, squelching mud, and practically submerged her entire foot. She bent down and scooped up the really small pig, stars practically in her eyes as it looked up at her.

“He’s _so_ cute!” She nuzzled the baby pig and some of the gross wet mud got on her face plus it was all over her hands, but she didn’t care because he was absolutely precious. “Lance, I’m gonna die from an overload of cuteness!”

Lance watched her spazz out over the pig. “Pidge, what’s up with you?”

“What? I like cute things, okay?” She spun around in a little circle, holding up the piglet in the air. It squealed, wiggling around in her hands, its tiny legs kicking back and forth. He was just the slightest bit furry, though his skin felt rubbery, and she knew he had to be pretty small because her hands could wrap around his middle fairly easily. “And you _are_ just the absolute cutest! With your goofy little ears and your wrinkly little porky nose and your curly Q fry tail.”

“Hey, take it easy. It’s a baby. Don’t be so rough.” Lance was pretty much dying of laughter nearby her. “What is it with you and small things? I guess like attracts like—”

Pidge turned and kicked him in the shin through the slat of the pig pen, and Lance’s laughter died immediately as he grunted in pain, bending down a bit to check on his leg. Nadia watched the exchange with a barely hidden smile, covering her mouth with her hand and trying to hide her little snorts.

“ _Fuck_ , Pidge! I-I mean, crap,” he amended quickly to Nadia. “Please don’t tell Luis I said that around you.”

She pretended to zip up her lips and throw away the key. “Said what, Uncle Lance?”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Pidge responded snidely to Lance, cradling the pig in her arms and bouncing it a bit side by side. She used her tank top to brush some mud off of his snout. “I told you I would kick your shin.”

“Fair enough.” Lance straightened up slowly. “But in my family, that’s a declaration of war.”

“I can take you,” she muttered and he snorted.

She stuck out her tongue and went back to pampering the baby pig. It squirmed around in her arms, putting its front hooves on her shoulder and sniffing at her face. His little ears and bum were wiggling curiously and Pidge’s smile was practically from ear to ear. He probably thought she was food, but it was still cute nonetheless. Knowing that the pig would grow to be this hulking, giant mass of pink flesh that could flatten her like a pancake if he fell on her, she just couldn’t get over how small he was now.

The farm hand tending to the pig pen said something to Lance while gesturing to Pidge.

“What’s up?” Pidge asked, a little worried that maybe she’d done something wrong.

“She says he’s the runt of the litter because he always loses against his siblings when he’s trying to get milk. He’s not getting enough to eat so they bottle feed him to get him up to size.” Lance explained as the woman spoke to him. It was true that this pig was pretty small compared to the other babies. “So she wanted to know if you wanted to feed him with a bottle.”

Pidge fake sobbed, much to his amusement. “This is the best day of my life…”

The old farm hand, Xiomara, she found out, handed her a bottle of warm milk measured out to only about thirty millilitres. Pidge settled back against the wood of the pen, holding both uncertainly and waiting for Lance to give her some instruction once she was situated.

“You can’t feed them like they’re human babies, so hold him upright and hold him steady because trust me, he’ll try to escape,” Lance told her. Pidge readjusted, tucking the piglet so he was more curled in the crook of her elbow. The baby pig squealed in distress at being constrained, squirming aggressively and trying to kick his little legs around once he realised he couldn’t move. “Don’t feed him too much at once, yeah?”

“Make sure to hold his snout lightly too!” Nadia chimed in, moving over to where some other adult pigs were eating and helping to rinse the mud off of them with a hose. “It’ll help him suckle.”

Pidge did so, gently urging the pig to take the nipple of the bottle and after a bit of agitated writhing from being restrained, she finally got the bottle in his mouth. It took a few seconds, but when she put a little more pressure on his snout, he started sucking on it. Pidge’s eyes went wide and she let slip an excited little gasp.

“Lance, look!” She beamed at him over her shoulder, her whole heart swelling at the sight of the adorable little pig drinking the milk. “I can’t believe I’m actually feeding a baby animal! Can you take a pic of this?”

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Lance pulled out his phone and took a few pictures of her. “We’re breeding our other three cows in July, so if you visit late next spring, the calves will be birthed by then. You’d get to do this with the baby cows before we sell them.”

“That would be so cool.”

She pulled the bottle away, giving the pig a breather for a bit before she gave him the bottle again. Maybe she was making a huge deal out of it but she worked with immobile tech and metal pretty much every day of her life. Experiencing something like this with a living, breathing creature that was responsive was an incredible thing. She was actually feeding a baby, and that was pretty damn magical to her. She could kind of understand why some mothers went all nuts over babies sometimes.

“If you’re this way with a baby animal, I can’t even imagine how you’d react to human babies…” Lance mused as if reading her mind. He propped an elbow on the top slat of the fence and rested his chin on his palm. “I can definitely see you being the kind to bite your kid’s cheeks and toes and stuff. Well, you know, if you have kids and all.”

“But I probably would do that though.” Pidge laughed, taking the bottle out of the piglet’s mouth again to let him breath. He tried to reach for it and she tsked at him softly, leaning down to kiss his fuzzy little head. “And yeah, I guess… I do want kids. _Far_ in the future, like way far, but surprisingly, it’s on my list of life goals. Marriage too. I bet that sounds totally weird coming from me, right? Gremlin Pidge wants to get married and have babies one day.”

“Not that weird.” Lance shrugged with a small grin, reaching over and slowly rubbing the pig’s back with a gentle finger. “I mean, yeah, if you’re talking about OG Pidge, I would be a little shocked. But Pidge 2.0 is a whole new person with a brand new personality.”

“You’re hilarious,” Pidge scoffed, putting the bottle back in the pig’s mouth to let him finish feeding. “I think it’s because of seeing what my parents have, you know? I mean, my dad went off on a huge mission, disappeared for years and was presumed dead, he got tangled in a galaxy war as a prisoner, and my mom lost him for so many years. But she believed he would come back, and he always believed he’d one day make it home to her and he did. They went through something horrible. And they’re so happy and enjoying life together now and they have two fairly well-adjusted kids, if not a little wild. And I want that with someone. A family that will last through thick and thin…”

“I feel the same.” He watched as Nadia laughed with Xiomara about one of the babies that was running around excitedly, headbutting its other siblings while they tried to feed. “I grew up around really affectionate people and being surrounded by people I love for so many years definitely shaped the way I think about my future. I’ve always dreamed about having a large, loving family one day too. And it’s not even about leaving behind a large legacy or anything.”

“It’s the warmth,” Pidge finished. “And the comfort.”

“Yeah.” Lance nodded, a rueful smile on his lips. “Of course, the girl I used to imagine kind of died and all, but the desire still exists.”

“You’re life’s not over, you know?” Pidge said consolingly, giving him a brief encouraging smile before she took the bottle out of her piglet’s mouth. He kept trying to nip at the bottle’s nipple so she moved her finger in the bottle’s place, letting the pig suckle on that instead. “In any case, we’re bringing her back. So who knows? You might get your wish at some point if Allura wants that too.”

“I know. I just…” Lance pulled a weird face.

“What?”

Pidge set the bottle down on a wooden plank of the fence and held the pig to her shoulder like she would a baby, rubbing its back with her free hand to aid its digestion. The piglet in her arms kept trying to climb up on her shoulder, wiggling around so much she had to tighten her hold the slightest bit.

“It’s hard to imagine coming true.”

She frowned, absentmindedly stroking her piglet’s back to settle him down. “What do you mean?”

“Just that… it just _feels_ different than what I expected. This whole thing. The possible future…”

She still wasn’t completely sure what he meant by that, but Lance’s vibe was odd, a mixture of a bunch of strange emotions she couldn’t pinpoint easily enough. It was especially odd to her because he was typically the most open. It wasn’t hard to read into his head, but now she was struggling to pick the feelings apart. And she got the impression even he didn’t know why he was feeling that way.

“I’m probably just tired…” he sighed under his breath, tapering off and staring off into the distance with a pensive look on his face.

“Lance…?”

He blinked, drawn out of his thoughts, but he was still giving off that strange vibe. Whatever had been going through his head was troubling him. She’d question it later if he was more open to sharing, but something told her whatever it was wouldn’t be good to bring up right now.

The pig wiggled in her arms, snuggling against her, and much calmer now that he wasn’t as hungry and Pidge grinned down at him, cooing softly to him and tickling his little stomach. He squealed happily as she scratched behind his ears, obviously enjoying the attention. It wasn’t that much different than taking care of Bae Bae back when he’d been a pup, and Pidge felt warmth grow in her chest as she watched the little piglet.

“Man, that pig really loves you,” Lance remarked, impressed by how quickly she’d managed to get a hand of it. “Usually they’re a lot more difficult to handle.”

“He may not have been birthed from my womb, but he understands that he’s my son,” Pidge said dramatically, wiping away fake tears.

Lance watched her in fond amusement. “And you called me a goofball.”

“…Well someone has to be since the fun-loving dork position was deserted and all.”

His expression sobered the slightest, brows furrowing in partial irritation. “Pidge.”

“I’m not the only one who misses him, you know…” she muttered, dropping her gaze to the pig she was gently rocking side by side. “I think you miss him too.”

He didn’t respond for a few seconds, but when she glanced back up at him cautiously, he looked lost in thought.

“He’s not totally gone.” Lance admitted at length. “Just kind of lost.”

His gaze shifted to hers, no closed off expression on his face for once, and Pidge was glad to see that they were in agreement. It made her feel better too. Like even though Lance was still hurting, he wouldn’t let the moping take over his life anymore.

Xiomara called Lance’s attention and said something to him again—something about names—before gesturing in Pidge’s direction.

“What’d she say?” Pidge asked curiously, smiling back at the woman when she smiled at her.

“She said you can name him, if you’d like. And you’re free to come visit whenever you want.”

“I can name my son?” Pidge held the pink baby pig out in front of her before affectionately rubbing her nose against his snout again. “Okay, I’ll name him Mr. Sausage Link Oinkers, eighth of his name.”

The perplexed frown on his face nearly made her laugh. “That’s a little morbid, don’t you think?”

“What?” She wrinkled her nose indignantly at him. “It’s a cute name. Like when people name their dalmatians Spot?”

“Pretty sure that’s not the same thing, but _okay…_ ”

“It’s morbid cute. And he likes it.” She kissed Mr. Oinkers on the top of his head one more time before finally setting him back on the ground near his mother and siblings. “Grow up big and strong, okay?”

The piglet traipsed about and skittered away before landing in a little puddle of muddy water, and Pidge chuckled to herself as she picked up the bottle to hand back to Xiomara.

“I wonder if this is what mothers feel like when their children go off to college…” Pidge sighed, watching the small pig squeal at its sibling when they both got caught in the mud. Lance let out a soft laugh under his breath, and she eyed him curiously. “What?”

“Aww. You’re so cute,” he said with a smirk.

He was definitely making fun of her.

“Lance, I’ll kick you again, you know?”

Nadia traipsed up to them, the bottom of her legs completely covered with mud along with parts of her face and a lot of her hair, and her clothes were pretty much smeared straight brown.

“Your mom is going to be so mad you got your clothes dirty again.” Lance snickered, reaching into Nadia’s ponytail and pulling out a hard clump of mud that made Pidge wonder if that was _actually_ mud and not something else. “I’ll help you out so you can rinse off.”

“I don’t know why she cares so much.” Nadia pouted, a gesture that was eerily similar to Lance’s whining pouty face from back in the day. “Sylvio never gets in trouble for dirty clothes.”

“The downside of being the baby sister and only daughter.” Pidge shook her head at similar memories of getting into fights with her own mother back in the day over getting grease and oil all over her clothes and face from tinkering with her father’s old tools. “I know the feeling. It gets better though. She’ll give up eventually.”

“Yeah… until she starts hiding lingerie and fuzzy pink handcuffs in your suitcase…” Lance muttered, giving her a look that was entirely too obscene considering Nadia was standing right there.

Pidge gave him a dirty look, but thankfully Nadia didn’t seem to understand the meaning behind his comment and was beaming at Pidge, looking relieved.

“I hope so. I’m tired of Mamá forcing me to go clothes shopping for hours as punishment!”

Pidge laughed, wiping off some wet mud sticking to her own cheek. “There’s a light at the end of the tunnel. I promise.”

Nadia stared at Pidge for a second and then she beamed and turned to Lance. “I like your second girlfriend, Uncle Lance! I approve of her too.”

Pidge registered what she said just a split second after Lance did but it definitely felt like their shocked reactions were one and the same. They glanced at each other incredulously, and Pidge felt the same unease coming from him that she was feeling. Where had Nadia even gotten that idea from?

“Uhh, we’re not together,” Pidge corrected quickly. “Just close friends.”

“Really? Uncle Marco said you were ‘in like’ with each other.” She gripped a fence slat and leaned in conspiratorially, her eyes wide. “Like, _like_ like, you know?”

“Uncle Marco is a dumbass…” Lance grumbled under his breath, just loud enough that Pidge heard it. She snorted, though Lance really didn’t look amused. “C’mon. We have to get out of here soon. I’ll help you out of the pen.”

Nadia held her arms up and with a small grunt, Lance grabbed her under her armpits and yanked her up. She laughed as he pulled her over the fencing, though she kicked her legs the slightest and loose mud flew everywhere to the point Pidge ducked down quickly to prevent getting sprayed by what she was sure had to be some manure mixed in with the brown mush. When Nadia touched the ground, she held her hands out as if landing a perfect ten off of a vault. Then she took the hose resting outside the pig pen and cranked it open to wash her legs and shoes clean of the mud.

Lance turned and held his hand out to Pidge. “Do you want some help too?”

“Not even a little,” Pidge said frankly as she grabbed the plank at the top and started climbing the fence to go back over. She was a little stuck, but she would never admit to him that her sneakers had gotten sucked into some of the mud and for a second, she couldn’t lift her feet from the suction. “You’ll probably throw me or something to get revenge.”

His expression told her she was definitely in the ballpark. “Careful not to break the fence. We didn’t bring any extra wood with us.”

“I’m not _that_ heavy.”

Pidge was proud of herself that she actually managed to loosen up the grip of the sludge on her foot through slow movements. Lance slid his hands in his pockets and watched patiently as she freed her feet. She climbed up to the top and swung her legs over carefully until she was fully seated on the top plank. Her intentions were to jump down, but Lance didn’t move from where he was standing in front of her, blocking her from getting off.

“I need a little room to jump down, Lance.” She eyed him warily. “It’d be great if you took like two steps back.”

“You seem nervous.”

“ _Yeah_. Because I kicked you and I know how you and your brother operate. Get away from me.”

“What?” His eyes flashed mischievously, a small glint to them that had her a little worried. “Did you think I was going to do something like this?”

His hands were on her legs before she could react and Pidge nearly screamed when he tipped her back, making as if to push her backwards off the plank. She lashed out and grabbed his shoulders immediately, her heart catapulting right out of her chest until he stopped.

“ _Lance_!”

He clearly found it funny though, and even though she currently wanted to fight him, seeing him enjoying himself stayed her irritation. That weird vibe from earlier was gone. He felt relaxed, calm and steady, a sheer difference from how she’d reunited with him. Luis was right that Lance seemed to be doing better. Well, at least from what she’d seen. She only hoped he wasn’t still spending his nights crying himself to sleep or something.

Pidge reached up to smooth her hand through a curly piece of hair sticking up, but she stopped cold at the last second, her hand hovering just above his head.

What the hell was she doing?

“You brought this on yourself, you know?” Lance responded, resting his forearms on her thighs and glancing up with a quirked brow. “I’m getting revenge eventually.”

“Y-yeah…?” Pidge cleared her throat, scratching at her arm to pretend like she hadn’t just been about to run her hand through his hair. “Anyway, you can’t retaliate against me. I have immunity.”

“Says who?”

“I’ll contact Shiro and Matt and tell them you hurt me, and they’ll take my side and beat you up.”

He looked thoroughly amused. “You play dirty.”

“All’s fair in love and war, Lance~”

“That goes both ways, you know? And yes. That is a threat.”

She narrowed her eyes, pretending to be annoyed while Lance chuckled to himself.

“Hey Lance, Katie, we’ve got twenty minutes left,” Luis called out, trudging over to the three of them and wiping his face with a damp rag. He had grease stains and oil smudges on his clothes and skin. “You wanna go pick some mangos now?”

“Papá!” Nadia cheered, dropping the hose and running up to her dad and launching herself in his arms.

He lifted her up with a groan, grumbling something about her getting too big. But nonetheless, he hoisted her up on his shoulders, gripping her calves while she let the rest of her body fall back and dangle upside down. Nadia cracked up, letting her hands drop and swing around, water dripping from her in droves because while they’d been distracted, she’d drenched herself completely.

“Why is she all wet?” Luis questioned, looking between the two of them in confusion.

“We should probably get a move on,” Lance responded, subtly changing the subject by checking his watch. “We still have barn work to complete back home.”

Lance moved so Pidge could hop off and also grab the hose to rinse off some of the caked on mud on her legs. She wasn’t a fan of wet socks in sneakers, so she ended up taking her shoes and socks off completely. The grass under her toes was soft though, so she didn’t mind it too much. Lance had a rag hanging from his back pocket that he let her borrow, and she used it to wipe off the mud on her face and shoulders and parts of her arms. The shirt would just have to be washed later.

Once she’d finished cleaning up, they bid farewell to Xiomara and headed over back to the little house. She couldn’t lie that she was a bit relieved. The pigs were cute, but that area definitely had a strong stench even worse than when she had to muck up the cows’ excrement on the McClain Farm. So she was all for leaving the humid, musty, manure-scented air, because no matter how quickly her nose had acclimated to the smell, it was still kind of gross.

Lance led the way to the small cluster of really nice mango trees on the south side of Luz’s house, and to Pidge’s pleasure, the trees were giving off a rather nice aroma. It was a little sweet, maybe tangy, but it definitely had that gentle fruity scent one could only associate with mangos. A nice change of pace from the heady odours of livestock.

Pidge had never seen a live mango tree before, and though she knew she probably resembled a goofy tourist, she couldn’t help but take pictures of the colourful array of mangos hanging from their stems in the bushy leaves.

Luis explained to her the basics of mango picking, how to cut it off with the clippers without removing the stem, how careful she had to be not to bruise or cut the skin of the mango because they were very sensitive. Once the mango dropped, she would have to tear off the stem carefully because the milky sap that would be released was like a harsh acid for human and mango skin. And after de-stemming, all she would have to do was toss the mango in the large plastic bin behind her filled with water. But she couldn’t pick just any mango all willy-nilly. The firm ones to pick all had a specific look to them: green with the hump part just beginning to turn red and without a pronounced tail. Apparently, it meant they were mature fruit, and that by the time they were cleaned and transported, they would be ripe and sweet enough to eat immediately.

After he and Lance demonstrated, and after they’d made sure she really did understand which mangos were mature or not, she took her turn clipping off mangos and being careful not to scrape any mangos with the metal. Part of her was still a little incredulous that such a cute, small, tasty fruit could produce an abrasive sap that could cause burns and rashes, but she wasn’t particularly in a mood to test it, so she took their word for it.

They developed a system soon enough. Luis clipped off the mangos on much higher branches, Pidge the ones on the lower branches, and Lance snapped off the stems and tossed them in the water bins to be cleaned off.

“We’ll only take care of two trees, for now. They’ll have a farm hand come in late to pick some more.”

Working in the stifling heat was unpleasant, and while Pidge wasn’t a fan of the freckles on her shoulders growing more prominent because of the sun, she was glad she’d worn a tank top. Though the trees were close to the house, they were still in the middle of the backyard, and thus, there was no shade. Despite the growing number of grey clouds, heat was bearing down on them uninhibited and if it wasn’t for Lance pushing her to get some water every handful of minutes, she probably would have keeled over by now. She could tell this wasn’t Nadia’s favourite task because the girl was skipping up and down the steps leading up the back porch, eating slices of dried mango and watching them as they worked (with no intentions to join in).

But still… Pidge kind of liked it.

“You know, I can see why you find this whole place peaceful,” Pidge murmured, staring up at the fragrant tree with a small smile as she reached up to clip another mature fruit. “I guess if I wanted to heal, I’d come back here too. Fresh air, ample space, no annoying government officials breathing down your neck. The whole place is really beautiful too. It is a nice environment for someone tired of war.”

Lance carefully tugged the stem off another mango and tossed it in the bin with the solution. “Sounds like you really need a vacation.”

She gave him a dry look. “That was kind of the point of coming here, but _someone_ decided to put me to work. Every day makes me feel like I need a desperate soak in a hot tub. And just when I think I’m not sore anymore, I use a new muscle I didn’t even know existed.”

“Long fingers are great for digging into the deep tissue of the muscles.” Lance wiggled his fingers. “I’ve been told I give great massages.”

“Hn. People lie to you a lot, don’t they?” she said in monotone, stopping her clipping for a moment to wipe at her forehead.

Nearby, Luis snorted, shaking his head as he clipped off some more of the mature fruit for Lance to de-stem.

“Okay,” Lance said in displeasure. “Just for that comment, you _won’t_ be getting an infamous McClain massage.”

“Lance, no offence, but your sweaty hands feel like a frog’s clammy skin, so I’m pretty sure I dodged a bullet,” Pidge responded sweetly, batting her eyelashes up at Lance.

This time, Luis laughed out loud and Lance gave him a betrayed look. “I’m sorry, kiddo. That one was out of the park. This is good enough. I think that’s it for the mature ones on these trees.”

“You wound me, Pidge,” Lance groaned, covering his heart with his hands. “Thought we were friends.”

“Be glad you have a friend who’s willing to tell you the truth.” She playfully shoved him out of her way and moved towards the bin of water to set her clippers down. She bent and picked up her soaked shoes and socks.

“Anyway, it’s better if you don’t,” Luis remarked, following Lance as he picked up the last few mangos on the ground and headed over to the water bin to remove the stems and toss them in. “McClain massages are cursed. They have a habit of causing unplanned pregnancies in our family. And while I’m not sure what exactly your relationship is, I’m pretty sure you’re not trying to get pregnant, right?”

Pidge nearly choked on her spit, and Lance’s own cheeks rouged a bit as they both stared at each other in abject horror. She knew Luis was just teasing them, but it was still an unexpected comment.

“I thought so.” Luis laughed his belly laugh and then leaned over the bin to observe the fruit inside the water. “This is good enough for now. I’ll stop by later tonight to finish up whatever her helper hasn’t finished, maybe bring some back, but Pops needs us to go work on the barn right now.”

That was right. The sky was getting progressively darker from the coming rain and she knew the goal was to get the building up and running safely for the cows before the storm hit, even if they didn’t have all the stalls or electrical components in place yet. Lance had told her it was pretty much a guarantee that the old barn would get blown to bits with any strong winds so they were on a time crunch.

“Nadia,” Luis whistled and she turned from where she was practicing cartwheels. “We’re about to leave soon. You wanna go start up the truck?”

She gasped and ran over. “Sure!”

He dropped the keys in her hand, but before she could take off, he held fast onto her upper arm. “No trying to drive it this time, chiquita.”

“I wasn’t going to try!” She whined, but it was pretty obvious to them all that she was definitely lying.

Luis sighed warily, but let her run off nonetheless. “I’m checking on Luz one more time before we go, but I’ll meet you back at the truck.”

He headed up the back porch to the inside of the house while Pidge and Lance made their way around the house towards where they’d parked the truck by the storage barn.

“Your shoulders and biceps are going to be sore later,” Lance remarked as they passed another flower bed of white ginger lilies that resembled butterflies. Some of them were salmon pink, but together, they added vibrancy to the dilapidated house. “The clipping is hard to get used to.”

“It took a lot more upper body strength than I expected.” Pidge stopped in front of the flowers, reaching out to gently trace a petal of one of the butterfly wings of the white flower. “Hedychium coronarium. My mom has a lab manufactured version she’s using to test if its essential oil can have some dermal use, but I’ve always wanted to see what real ones actually look and smell like.”

“We call them mariposa here.” His brows lifted, impressed. “Are you studying flowers for your work too?”

Pidge shook her head. “No. This is my mom’s specialty, so by default, it’s kind of mine too. But these are beautiful. And that nickname is fitting.”

Pidge leaned forward and took a soft whiff of the fragrant flower, smiling to herself at the mellow scent it exuded. Like its namesake, it had ginger undertones and a fresh aroma that wasn’t so overpowering that it would affect her nose in a negative way. She wasn’t a huge plant person, but she was her mother’s daughter and she’d developed an appreciation for flowers and their scents. Pidge knew her mother would absolutely love this place, and she took a picture of the flowers to send to her mom in her free time.

“Do you want one?” Lance asked.

“I mean, that’d be nice. Sure, I guess, but—”

Before she could finish her statement, Lance casually pulled an exacto-knife looking tool out of his pocket and cut off one of the flowers at the base with a skilled hand. The flower wasn’t crushed in his hand in the process and there were no frays or stray fibres hanging from the clean cut of the stem. He held it up to her with an amused smile when she gaped at him incredulously.

“Umm, Lance? You sure it’s okay that you just cut Luz’s flower off?” Pidge said slowly like he’d lost his mind. “And do I even want to know why you have a stem cutter in your pocket like that’s normal…?”

“It’s fine.” Lance laughed a bit. “She started growing so many flowers so our community could decorate with them everywhere. She wants people to use them.”

She was going to say something in response, but the words got lost in her head when Lance stepped in front of her, her gaze filled with nothing but him. Taken aback, she could do nothing but stand there when he reached up and gently tucked some loose hair from under her bandana behind her ear. He gently set the short stem of the flower behind her ear, and when he was done, his finger ghosted over her cheek for a moment before he dropped it back to his side.

“There… You have a mariposa now.”

Pidge stared up at him with wide eyes, realising how closely they were standing. But neither of them moved, frozen in place like they weren’t quite sure what to do next. It made butterflies flip in her stomach the longer she held his intense gaze.

“It looks beautiful on you,” he said softly.

“I’m covered in sweat and mud, Lance…” Pidge chewed on her lower lip to stop her burgeoning goofy smile, breaking eye contact finally to look at the ground. “But thanks.”

“Yeah. Right. We should, uh,” Lance gestured towards the storage barn with his thumb, his other hand rubbing the back of his neck, “probably should head back to the truck. You know. Make sure Nadia doesn’t back up into the barn or something.”

“Right.” She agreed, turning on her heel a little stiffly. “Right. To the truck.”

They chuckled awkwardly and continued on their way, silence reigning between them from that weird moment. Pidge wasn’t sure what the hell that had been, but she shucked it to the back of her mind, deciding it was just stupid. It wasn’t anything.

There was no reason to get weird over it.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (17.05.19: update 3/3)

“So how do I break this part down…” Pidge muttered under her breath, zooming into her large graph to the part where Kosmo did his special time poof.

She pulled apart the bending energy polarity layer of the graph so that all were separate and then zoomed in on all of them to the same time poof section so she could look at the subtle changes during the time jump more clearly. The most important observation was the spike in quark, but now she’d need to experiment with bending energy, and she had no idea how to run that kind of experiment just yet. She was sure it would come to her in time, but right now, her body was a little exhausted after all the hard work she’d put in that day and her brain was slowing down.

She would obviously have to run the experiment at least twice more to get more substantial results and evidence that this wasn’t some accidental fluke, but as far as the results went, she was pretty confident that she’d discovered Kosmo’s secret.

“Kosmo, this is all thanks to you,” Pidge murmured affectionately, scrubbing her hand through the soft space fur of his mane. “Who’s a good boy?”

The wolf’s tail wagged lazily before he dropped it and resumed his little nap.

But while she’d proved her initial hypotheses correct, now she had to figure out how the quark manifested, its origin from Kosmo’s body, but most importantly, a safe measure to remove and gather it without possibly hurting him. Plus quintessence and quark matter did not have similar properties, despite their identical effects, so what would happen if she combined the two?

She looked out the window of the room, a little disappointed that it had since started drizzling after they’d had supper. She would have liked to put in a bit more work on her project. It was projected to continue into the next day (technically that day) and the storm was supposed to become pretty intense by the evening, so the morning and afternoon would likely be it to finish up installing the plywood and tiling the roof for the barn. They’d done a lot once they’d returned from Luz’s pig farm. So much that Pidge hadn’t even had time to think about project B.A.B, much less analyse her observations.

True to Lance’s warning, by the time they’d finished up drilling the rafters, her body had already started to show signs of serious fatigue and soreness, to the point that Lance had done the evening milking and told her to go relax.

That had been hours ago, and honestly, it would probably be a good idea for her to get some rest. Work was going to get intense by daybreak, and as it stood, it wasn’t like she could get anything done in the rain. Kosmo had seemed adamantly against being outside, so she wasn’t going to force him either.

“I guess maybe I’ll just go to bed then…” she muttered dejectedly.

Pidge rose from her the chair with a sigh, wincing a bit at the way her sweat-soaked thighs stuck to the wood. As she stretched her arms to alleviate some of the tightness, Lance appeared and stopped by the door, rapping his knuckles against the wood. His hair was still kind of wet from what she assumed was a shower.

“How are your arms, Pidge?” Lance asked from the open doorway.

“I’m okay right now, but I’m sure when I wake up, it’ll be much worse.” Pidge turned to face him in confusion. “It’s super late. What are you doing up?”

She was used to staying up well past reasonable hours working on her craft, but Lance had always been an early to bed, early to rise kind of guy. Something about beauty sleep and the elasticity of skin, though she’d never really listened when he’d rant about that stuff in the past.

Lance leaned against the frame. “It’s a Saturday night. We usually make it a point to do something outside of our farm tasks so we don’t go crazy. We can’t do much since it’s raining and my parents took the truck, but…”

“What’d you have in mind?” she asked curiously.

And Pidge definitely didn’t miss the dangerous little grin that appeared on Lance’s face. He held up the dark liquor bottle he had in his other hand, shaking it lightly.

“Let’s get drunk.”

“No fucking way,” Pidge said, shaking her head vehemently. “I was about to go to sleep. Besides, I’m a lightweight.”

And she wasn’t confident in her abilities not to act like a reckless idiot with no inhibitions around Lance while drunk. They’d always been each other’s enabler back in the day and they’d been _sober_ then.

But both of them drunk?

Not to mention, she was notoriously bad at holding her liquor. Shiro took her out for her very first wild drinking session on her 21st, and unfortunately, that meant he had a front row seat to her throwing up on the bartender when she was trying to climb up on the bar counter to dance. Since then, she’d quickly learned her limits and made sure never to go over when with her friends.

“Sleep?” Lance rose an incredulous brow. “C’mon, Pidge. The night is still young.”

“It’s nearly two in the morning, Lance.”

“You’ve been working all day. When was the last time you got a chance to chill and be an irresponsible young adult anyway?”

She refused to dignify that with a response. She just knew if she told him the truth, he wouldn’t leave her alone about how extensively she’d been working.

“You’re one to talk, Lance.”

“Right,” he said with a shit-eating grin and she knew he’d trapped her. “So all the more reason for us both to just chill, right?”

Pidge let out a long-suffering sigh. “Go drink with your brothers.”

“Luis is having a night out with Lisa. And Marco is with his date. And my parents took my grandparents to town to visit some old friends.”

“So basically I was the fall-back since no one else was available,” she intoned, side eyeing him in disinterest as she picked up her discarded pyjama shorts from the floor.

“Nah. I’d rather hang out with you anyway.” He grimaced a bit. “Marco and Luis have a tendency to steal my clothes after I fall asleep and leave me in the cattle barn. One time, I think Bella tried to go to third base with me.”

Pidge laughed at that. She could just imagine a groggy Lance waking up in that rude old cow’s stall, buck naked with his face mask still on and a cow’s ass in his face.

“She must have liked what she saw.” She waggled her eyebrows at him and his expression fell flat.

“That’s not funny. It was traumatising.”

“What makes you think I wouldn’t, like, handcuff you naked to the porch railing or something?”

His eyes twinkled in mirth. “I mean, I’ve never done bondage stuff before, but I’ll try anything once.”

Pidge had to physically stop moving for a second, in complete disbelief over the fact that he’d said that.

“I’m going to bed.”

“My point is, you’ve been working your ass off since you got here. I know you have a ton of work to do, but I’m sure your mind would appreciate the break. You’re giving off some intense frazzled vibes.” He pointed out, straightening up with a smug little smile. “If our lives were any kind of normal we’d probably be in grad school partying on the weekends anyway. Plus, I’m the only one who hasn’t gotten to see Katie Holt’s infamous drunken craziness.”

“I guess.” Pidge stared at the bed for a second, wondering if she would regret not choosing to just go to sleep. But then again, he did have a point. She hadn’t nearly relaxed as much as she could for being on a vacation. Plus, she _was_ restless, and she was certain if she even tried to go to sleep with her mind not settled, she’d spend most of the night staring up at the shadows on the ceiling. “Alright. Why not?”

He pumped a fist in triumph. “We’ll have to chill downstairs though. The walls up here are thin.”

She moved to the desk and swiped the holographs back into her tablet to close out of them. “So?”

“So Marco’s with his date,” Lance repeated slowly, giving her a poignant look until she caught his drift. “And the walls are thin.”

Pidge grimaced, shooing him towards the door hurriedly so Lance would lead the way. She grabbed her satchel and stuffed her tablet in there just in case she might have need for it. Lance stared at her in exasperation, but she ignored his look and slipped on her pair of house slippers to follow him.

The house was pretty much dark and deserted, save for that one errant giggle she’d heard from upstairs when they began their descent down the stairs. Lance flicked on the lights of the kitchen and then headed over to a cabinet to take out two crystal whisky glasses.

“You wanna sit on the porch outside? It feels cooler than normal cuz of the rain.”

“Lead the way,” Pidge said with a small yawn.

It did feel better outside than the torrid heat from earlier that day. And though it was raining, it wasn’t hard enough that droplets were landing on the patio. The soft pattering of the rain hitting surfaces was actually kind of nice and with the dimmed lighting above from the porch lamp and the soft glow of magenta in the distance from the juniberries, it created a tranquil ambiance.

They plopped down on the comfy battered couch, and Lance handed her one of the glasses before uncapping the bottle to pour her a little to try. The liquor he poured in it was a cherry brown colour and just the slightest bit viscous. She took a cautious sniff of it, expecting it to smell syrupy sweet like amaretto or something, but she caught the distinct smell of mango. Pidge watched Lance take a sip with suspicious eyes, hoping to glean how awful it might be from his reaction.

Lance snorted from behind the rim of his own glass. “It’s not going to kill you, Pidge.”

“What is this, anyway?” She took a small sip, unfamiliar with whatever this molasses-reminiscent drink was. A small flash of heat burst in her chest as it went down and she pursed her lips. She wasn’t really sure how she felt about it. It didn’t have that nasty bitterness accompanied by the burn like some whisky she’d tried once. In fact, this one was pretty sweet with a hint of mango, and in some ways, tasted kind of like wood. The burn as it went down was unpleasant though. “I don’t drink often enough to tell.”

“Mango rum.” He finished off the rest of his glass with a slight wince from the bite. “Luz’s side business is making aged rum and she gave Luis a couple bottles when he went back earlier today.”

Pidge swished a bit around in her mouth. “It’s not bad. Much better than tequila, that’s for sure.”

“Tequila not your poison of choice?”

She made a face of disgust. “Absolutely not. One time I tried some cherry brandy and tequila nightmare with candy cane sticks inside during some holiday party. It was the worst thing I had ever had.”

Lance was scrutinising her like he didn’t quite believe her. “That’s not why you hate tequila though.”

Pidge distracted herself from responding by finishing off the rest of the little bit in her glass, choking a bit and coughing as she whacked at her chest. The rum was actually a lot stronger than she thought and it felt like fire going down.

“You did something embarrassing, didn’t you?” A slow grin grew on Lance’s face. “I’ll tell you one of my worst secrets if you tell me what happened.”

She licked her lips uneasily, wondering if it would be a good idea, but honestly, Lance was all in for this bonding session. They _were_ working on mending their friendship and it wouldn’t hurt to be honest with him. It was true that she’d gone out drinking with Hunk and Keith and Shiro before at different times and she could honestly say those adventures with them had helped them get closer, so she was long overdue for a chill drinking sesh with Lance too.

(Plus, she’d be learning something embarrassing about him and she was always down for getting more blackmail material off her friends).

“I’ll tell you,” Pidge finally responded, lifting her glass up a bit and giving him a pointed look, “but we’re taking two shots because that embarrassment is going to creep up on me later and I don’t want to think about it.”

Lance didn’t look bothered at all. “Done.”

He poured them both about a shot’s worth and after clinking their glasses together, they tossed them back. Pidge almost _died_ from the burn, her eyes watering from the intensity of the heat in her chest. She let out a slight whimper of agony after nearly coughing a lung out, and to her annoyance, while Lance was grimacing and exhaled slowly, he hardly seemed as affected. But she supposed it would make sense. If this was something he did often with his brothers, then she had a feeling she would be the only one making a fool of herself. But if she was going to share this secret with him, she would need to numb herself a bit.

“Okay…” Pidge croaked, holding her glass up again, though her face was still twisted in disgust. “I’m ready. Round two.”

Lance filled their glasses with roughly a shot’s worth one more time and together, they knocked it back, both of them looking a little agonised over it. Lance let out a small groan of displeasure, but when he took one look at her expression while she tried to recover, he cracked up.

Pidge flipped him off as she coughed again, wiping her mouth when a bit of it dribbled onto her lips. Her stomach roiled dangerously in distaste and she closed her eyes to wait out the aggressive rejection of her body towards the rum. It wasn’t horrible tasting, but she was never good at taking shots—she’d never gotten the technique down—and consuming this much at one time wasn’t her forte.

“You good, Pidge?” Lance was still snickering.

“I don’t do hard liquors like this without a chaser.” She rubbed at her chest and finally let out a sigh of relief when the rum stopped burning in her throat. “And when I do it’s usually mixed in with something else. I’m gonna grab some lemonade before this comes back up the way it went down.”

Lance started laughing again and she rolled her eyes as she stood from the porch couch and went back inside. She didn’t find it particularly funny. This stuff was really strong. She had no doubt it was an extremely high proof. She was sure that Lance had also probably choked up drinking it for the first time, and she made a mental note to ask Marco for some details.

Pidge grabbed the remaining lemonade in the pitcher from the fridge and poured a tall glass worth before taking it back outside. She settled back down onto the couch, pulling her feet up on the cushions.

“Kay. I’m ready.” She drank some of the lemonade to get the taste of rum out of her mouth and offered him the glass. Lance took it gratefully and drank some too. “You and your brothers must have stomachs of steel to handle this.”

“To be fair, this _is_ really strong though. Veronica doesn’t touch this stuff. The only one who can outdrink all of us and not blink is Rachel, but that’s only because she’s a heavy party girl,” Lance explained, clearing his throat and rubbing at it a bit. “So what’s your embarrassing secret?”

Pidge tilted her head back against the back of the couch with a small groan and wishing the alcohol could kick in faster and loosen up her inhibitions.

“Nobody else knows about this, so mum’s the word, yeah?”

Lance quirked a brow. “Wow, this must be really bad.”

“Shush. So it’s probably no surprise, but like some girls, tequila makes me horny. Like, sloppy horny drunk,” she explained while gesturing with a hand nonchalantly. “It messes with my head and for some reason, I can’t hold it as well as other stuff.”

“That doesn’t seem so bad, Pidge.” Lance cut the glass he’d poured for himself with some of the lemonade. “Marco jumped off the roof to impress a girl once and broke his leg when he was drunk off tequila.”

“Okay, but that’s bad in a different kind of way. Mine was… I-I… well…” Her cheeks reddened when Lance turned to face her and Pidge groaned again, wondering how they’d ended up on this topic of conversation in the first place. She folded her arms on top of her knees and tried to cool her face. “So like… the first time I gave someone a blowjob I choked on it and triggered my gag reflex only I _actually_ threw up all over his dick plus I didn’t even realise I had thrown up until he started gagging too so for like half a minute I was sucking on my own vomit.”

She said it all at once in one breath, and it took Lance a few seconds to get what she’d said, but when he did, his glass stopped halfway to his mouth, brows high on his forehead. For a second, he gaped at her like he wasn’t really understanding how the fuck it was even possible. And then he just about lost it, hunching over a bit as his loud laughter rang out into the air.

“That’s _horrible_.” He cackled, and Pidge nudged him with her heel in annoyance when he wouldn’t stop laughing. “That is so fucking gross. I would have paid good money to see you act so undignified.”

“I seriously regret telling you now…” she mumbled, dropping her face on her folded arms and peeking up at him with a red face. Lance looked like he was going to die, and she kind of wanted to punch him. “But even worse than that, it didn’t even kill the mood. We still did it after that.”

His face twisted in distaste. “Urgh, disgusting. Vomit dick and all?”

“No, you dork! We cleaned up. We were drunk, but not _that_ drunk.” Pidge snatched the bottle from his hand and poured herself another glass. She downed it in one fell swoop and then chugged down the rest of the lemonade, forcing her body not to fight it. She needed this shot after revealing that horrible experience. “And believe it or not, the vomit dick wasn’t even the worse part of the sex. He had a micro penis. I’m no size queen or anything but he didn’t know how to use it to his advantage and I couldn’t feel anything and at some point I asked him if it was in yet. He, like, started crying and I found out he’d been inside me for like two minutes at that point.”

Lance _ooh_ ’ed, grimacing while clearly failing to stop himself from laughing again. “Pidge, _no_ … Holy fuck, that poor guy probably lost all confidence in himself.”

“I apologised profusely, but he lost his boner and then I saw myself out…” Pidge pouted, remembering how the poor guy had curled into a ball and refused to look at her anymore. “What exactly was I supposed to say when I couldn’t feel it though?!”

“Not _that_.” Lance snorted and gave her a look like she was nuts. “Never say anything like that about a guy’s twig and berries. Size is a sensitive thing. For example, some girls wouldn’t appreciate people they’re hooking up with commenting on their chest sizes.”

“I feel like there’s an insult to me in there somewhere,” Pidge said slowly with narrowed eyes, “and I’m tempted to punch you in the face for that.”

“I’m not talking about _you_ necessarily. There’s nothing wrong with your… uhh…” Lance cleared his throat, resting his arm on the back of the sofa as he took a distracted sip of the rum in his glass. “I just had to make a comparison that held the same weight.”

“Whatever, man,” she scoffed, picking at the scab on her knee from moving the hay earlier. “Anyway, I’ve never ever told anyone about that. So now you owe me a real juicy secret. Something none of our friends know about that I can embarrass you with in the future.”

“Okay…” Lance sat back, staring at the rain as he thought about it. “Well, when I was like twelve, I used to like going through Rachel’s stuff and trying her skin care products. She usually let me do whatever with all her stuff. But the year after she’d started high school, she had one drawer that she told me never to touch. And I’m sure we’ve established that I was a pretty obnoxious preteen.”

Pidge grinned. “So you opened it.”

“I opened it, yeah.” He nodded, smiling back. “Found her vibrator. It looked like a mini-cucumber though, and I wasn’t sure what it was so I turned it on but I didn’t know it needed three more clicks to shut off. So I thought I broke it when I clicked a couple times and pretty much left it on the most intense setting. And I was scared so I stole it and hid it in my pocket. At dinner, it was making obvious noise, but my mom covered for me and pretended like her phone was glitching. But after dinner she pulled me aside and advised me that if that was something I was experimenting with, I should start smaller to train myself. And that’s how I got a lesson on anal play from my mom.”

“She thought it was a vibrating butt plug?!” Pidge’s eyes went wide as she cracked up, and she covered her mouth in sheer horror. “How can you even look your mom in the eye anymore? I would die if that happened to me!”

He ran a hand through his hair with a weary sigh. “She brings it up every once in a while and asks if I’ve worked myself up to a fist yet.”

“Good Lord…” Pidge couldn’t stop laughing, just imaging an unsuspecting Lance trying to finish his tasks for the day only for his mother to ask him such a horrible question unannounced. “Did Rachel ever find out?”

“No, thank God. She thought Veronica must have tossed it. I’m pretty sure if she found out though, she would have joined in with my mom and even gotten Marco involved, which by the way, beware of Rachel,” he warned her, taking another sip of his drink. “If you thought the mice gossiping with Hunk and Allura was bad, that has nothing on my mom, Lisa, Marco, and Rachel. They could run a whole newspaper with all their gossip, and right now, you’re probably the target.”

“Thanks for the tip.” Knowing their flamboyant personalities, that sounded like a nightmare. Pidge braced her elbow on the back of the couch and leaned her head on her fist. The motion made the world spin a bit, like it was slowed down. “I’ll make sure to avoid ending up alone in a room with all of them.”

“Oh, and if you ever hear my mom say anything about childbearing hips, you should probably exit the conversation too.”

“You know, I love them, but your family is starting to terrify me. And I’ve only been here a week.”

“Try living with them for twenty-five years…” Lance muttered, finishing off his drink with a look of defeat.

Their conversation tapered off into a companionable silence, and Pidge stared out at the soft rain, her mind turning topics at a speed faster than she could comprehend them. She watched the small droplets of rain bounce off the banister, hitting the wooden deck and forming small circles. She felt a little woozy, not enough to fall all over herself, but the warmth in her body was spreading. This was nice. And based off what she could feel from Lance, he thought so too.

It kind of made her lament the fact that the Voltron stuff had happened.

Don’t get her wrong, being a paladin was easily one of the best things she’d experienced in her life thus far, and without the experience she wouldn’t have truly become close to the best friends she could ever hope to have. But she couldn’t deny that had the war in space and Voltron stuff not happened, her life would likely have had a very different trajectory.

Lance had had a point that they probably would be in grad school or something. Pidge studying for a Ph.D. in astrophysics and directly following in the footsteps of her brother who would have _definitely_ gotten a Ph.D. in astrophysics; Shiro still a renowned pilot like now, but without all the pain that came with his capture; Hunk likely getting a masters in mechanical engineering instead of becoming a space diplomat with his five-star space restaurants; Keith becoming a famous hoverbike drag racer, maybe? The thought made her snort.

And Lance would have been…

Huh.

Come to think of it, she wasn’t even really sure what his interests had been or what his life had been like outside of any of the garrison stuff. She’d never asked.

“Hey, Lance…”

“Hmm?” he murmured, a soft, drowsy look on his own face.

“What do you think you would have been doing had we not had the whole space war experience?” Pidge asked, shifting in her seat so her legs were folded underneath her.

“That’s a loaded question,” he responded idly, setting the glass on the ground. “Like after graduating from the Garrison or no space stuff at all?”

She traced a finger slowly around the rim of her glass. “Both.”

He scratched at his stubble for a bit, pondering the question. “Probably would have become a vet or something. Maybe a paediatrician. But after graduating from the Garrison, I honestly don’t know. I’d always pretty much been set on flying in space. No other interests.”

Pidge stared at him, wanting to ask him if that was still the case now but she didn’t want to ruin the good vibes right now. He tended to get irritated with that question and while she’d definitely made some progress, she knew now was not the time to be pushing buttons. Although she was _seriously_ itching to ask him and every second that passed made it harder to stop herself.

She needed a distraction.

“Hey, it’s kind of hot in this room. Do you mind turning on the fan?”

“ _In this room_?” Lance responded slowly, looking positively entertained. “Pidge, we’re sitting outside on an open porch.”

“You know what I meant,” she growled. “And it’s still hot so don’t be a smartass and turn on the fan.”

Lance stood up with a smile, shifting over and reaching up to tug on the shorter chain by the lightbulb to turn on the ceiling fan above her head. Pidge honestly didn’t mean to stare at his torso, but it was in her direct line of sight and his shirt rode up a bit, and she found herself unwittingly following the soft trail of dark hairs leading down that disappeared under his jeans. Pidge blinked stupidly, her brain refusing to listen to her orders to stop staring at the toned expanse of skin she got to ogle for those brief seconds before he dropped his arm again.

Well.

That was _one_ way to distract her.

“You used to be so twiggy,” she muttered, holding her lower lip between her teeth and not really realising she’d said it out loud until Lance gave her an amused look when he sat back down beside her. “But now you’re like skinny buff. In a good way. Like an Old McDonald had a farm, e-i-e-i- _whoa_ kind of thing…”

“Working on a farm for three years tends to do that.” His eyes narrowed playfully. “I feel violated by that look, Pidge. I’m not some piece of meat, you know?”

“You are a piece of meat. My receptionist thinks you filled out nice too.”

Whatever lack of focus he’d had before vanished, and Pidge’s face flushed when his brows lifted in mirth like he’d just found his next source of entertainment. A soft siren in her head told her to abort mission.

“…Too?”

“I-I mean your dedication to your tasks is admirable. Like with the milking and how you,” she lifted her hands and pretended to milk a fake cow, “with your hands, you feel? It’s _admirable_ , I said.”

“Oh yeah? You know… I’m starting to get the impression that you might actually have a hand kink.” Lance slid closer, a devious look on his face. Pidge leaned back, trying to put more space between them and wondering what the hell had possessed her to agree to drink with Lance. “Does it turn you on when I _milk a cow_?”

“I didn’t say you were hot!”

He was momentarily taken aback by her outburst, but she knew immediately that she’d said the wrong thing when a provocative gleam danced in his gaze.

“I… didn’t say you said that either.” He waggled his eyebrows, a rogue smirk on his lips as he shifted closer until he had her practically wedged against the armrest. Pidge felt her whole face go up in flames. Her mind was slow and she couldn’t think of how to pull herself out of this stupid hole she kept digging herself in. “So you think I’m hot, huh? Would you like me to milk _your_ cow?”

Pidge laughed in spite of herself, shoving on his shoulders when he got in her space. “Stop! I didn’t say that!”

“Yes, you did,” he said smugly, hazy eyes shining with mirth. “You think I’m hot~”

“Shiro is better looking than you,” she countered, hating that her mouth was not listening to her damn head.

She knew getting drunk with Lance was a bad idea. Especially as much as she had knocked back in such a short period of time. She felt it. She couldn’t articulate and her damn head was kind of swimming and try as she might to get herself in order, everything felt just so slightly off. Plus, she kind of wanted to tell Lance that she’d had a crush on him in the past—or like, tell him to take his shirt off—and that told her she was in a _horrible_ position right now.

“That’s not an insult. He’s better looking than everyone.” He chuckled, and Pidge felt her heart nearly jump out of her chest when he put a hand on her thigh and spoke in a lower tone. “Come to think of it, you called me cute that time you were comparing me to the yelmore years ago.”

Pidge flattened her hand on his face and pushed him away. “I never said anything of the sort!”

“Don’t get all shy now,” he snorted, his voice muffled by the obstruction. “I’m flattered. Coming from someone who’s attracted to robots, this is a huge honour.”

“I didn’t say _you_ were cute,” she argued staunchly, moving the dropped glass on her lap to the floor before she accidentally broke it. “Besides, if you’re possibly, maybe, marginally more attractive now, it’s only because you’re not a human bibohbii anymore. You know I used to think you could understand him so easily because you were a distant relative.”

“Oh ha ha.” The smirk dropped from his face, replaced by a deadpan look. “That’s very cute. You’re adorable.”

Pidge giggled to herself, snorting a couple times and trying to stop, but Lance’s disgruntled expression was really funny for some reason. She reached up and held his face with both hands, squishing his cheeks. The crescent moons under his eyes got folded up a bit and she thought they looked more like boomerangs like this.

“But if you grow out your scruff just a little—but like a controlled scruff—you’ll be a pantie dropper.” Come to think of it, she kind of had a thing for tall, lean-muscled, slightly bearded guys, and unfortunately, Lance’s dumb ass fit the bill even more now than when they’d been teens. “Like, sexy pantie dropping farmer from a filthy romance novel kind of hot.”

He didn’t say anything at first, though he did look surprised. “Uh… Duly noted.”

They stared at each other, Pidge feeling a slow heat crawl down her back from the strange look in Lance’s eyes. It didn’t help that their faces were so close and that her legs were practically on top of his—and that his warm hand was still resting on her thigh. Pidge licked her lips, feeling nervous all of a sudden. She needed to divert this conversation to safer ground and fast.

Because she kind of felt like doing something stupid right now, and she wasn’t even sure herself what that would be.

“I can top your butt plug secret, Lance,” she whispered, her lips quirked up in a slight smile.

“Yeah?” he answered just as quietly. “What’s that?”

Pidge let go of him and reached down to get her satchel. She rummaged around in it, shifting aside her tablet and the smaller tools she had in there to pick up the case of the video game she’d been stashing for a few days. She hadn’t been able to figure out the best time to tell him about it, but now felt like a good enough time.

“I know it’s been like three years by this point, and you probably don’t care anymore, but I found it again.” She sat up and held up the Killbot Phantasm XXVI game in front of him sheepishly. Lance stared at it, no particular expression on his face. “It was at that shop we went to in town. So I bought it. I mean, I don’t really have any plans for it, but the series is—”

“Discontinued,” Lance finished.

“Yeah. And I thought it might be nice to complete my collection.” She nodded, setting it on her lap and tracing the outdated art design on the cover with her finger. “I didn’t know you knew about it.”

“I looked into it once a long time ago.” Lance leaned his head back against the back of the couch, a nostalgic smile on his face. “Couldn’t find any though. And what’d you mean by _again_? You mean to tell me you found it before and didn’t buy it? Why?”

She didn’t say anything, her brows furrowing, but her silence must have been too jarring because Lance lifted his head and faced her again with suspicious eyes.

“Pidge?”

“I…” She chewed on her lower lip. “It’s not important.”

“Clearly it is. I can feel it,” Lance responded softly, tilting his head to catch her gaze again when she averted it. “I’m here for you too if you need to talk about something, you know? Free therapy. Don’t miss out on this once in a lifetime offer.”

“Sappy dork.” She sighed and met his gaze, smiling a bit because his own was far too infectious not to smile back. “I found this like three years ago, but I traded it so Allura could have a proper date outfit for you guys’ first date.”

He looked surprised. “…You did that for her? But you love this game so much.”

“I wanted you both to have a good date.” She shrugged her shoulders and leaned back against the couch with a small laugh. “I mean, I love you guys more than some game so it was an easy sacrifice. I’ve never regretted that I did it. Your date went well, so I’m happy that I gave it up for something meaningful. Besides, I was on a journey of growth and trying this thing called not being selfish.”

In a way, for her, it was kind of the beginning of her giving up on her feelings for Lance. The start of the closure she’d needed once she’d found out Lance had asked Allura out on a date in the first place. It was kind of funny. She’d made such a big deal about the symbolism of the game and losing Lance when she’d talked to Keith, but now it didn’t feel bad at all. Didn’t feel like much of anything but the exaggerated angstiness of a teenager. She was glad she’d definitely gotten over everything that had happened back then. It wasn’t so hard to talk about it anymore.

“…I remember we would always say we would do a marathon one day,” he finally said after an extended period of silence.

“Fleeting dream now I guess,” Pidge said, stretching her arms up and groaning when her shoulders popped a bit. “I know you said you don’t really play games anymore, so I’m not going to badger you into playing or anything. Just thought you’d want to know that I found it.”

“Would it make you happy to play?”

“Huh?”

“Would it make you happy?” Lance repeated, his gaze trained on her.

“Uh, yeah.” She turned toward him, but the look on his face was hard to decipher. “It would. I guess.”

“Okay,” Lance said decisively as he rose to his feet with a slight yawn. “Let’s go play.”

Pidge wrinkled her nose in confusion. “What?”

“I know you’re a little tipsy, but keep up.” He leaned down and gently knocked a knuckle to her head. “I said let’s go play Killbot.”

She still was having trouble understanding what he’d said over her confusion—mostly because it’d been so unexpected—and Lance must have gotten impatient with her blinking stupidly up at him because he scooped her up with a sigh before she could react and tossed her on his shoulder. She grabbed hold of the material of his shirt on his back to hold her balance when literally everything pitched and swam. He had one arm wrapped tightly enough around her torso that there was no way she could fall, but Pidge suddenly felt like the whole world was spinning her upside down over and over.

“Wha— _Lance_ , what the hell?!”

“Had to jumpstart your brain somehow since you weren’t getting it…”

His shoulder was pressing against her stomach though and for a second she felt like she was about to puke.

“I’m gonna throw up all over your back—”

“Like blowjob guy?” Lance drawled.

Pidge glared at his head, though she was mad that he couldn’t feel the weight of it. “I’m not some doll you can haul around like a sack of potatoes!”

“Can’t help that you’re fun sized.”

“That’s not funny!” She squirmed in his hold, but he definitely had a good grip, and if she hadn’t been peeved about being manhandled, she would have totally been relishing in how strong his arm felt around her. “Put me down or… or I’ll spank you!”

He hummed in amusement. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“Lance, you annoying fucking dork!” She couldn’t help but laugh, though it was interrupted midway by a threatening wet burp that she knew was a clear sign that if she didn’t settle her stomach right now, Lance would get a nice mosaic painted down on his back. “It’s really about to come back up.”

He leaned forward and set her feet down on the couch. Once again, the world slowly spun like she was getting tossed in a lazy swirly circle, and she stumbled a bit to get her footing before grasping onto his shoulders.

“The world feels like I’m a helpless pair of socks in a dryer with the wrong prescription glasses on my face.” She leaned her forehead on his shoulder and let out a loopy little giggle. “Also, I’m totally taller than you now.”

“You weren’t kidding about being a lightweight…”

His low voice was drifting right in her ear, and Pidge hummed in pleasure, loving how she felt the warmth down her back. He smelled really good. Kind of like a fresh shower. And spicy from that subdued smell of rum. And with the added scent of the rain falling outside the patio, she couldn’t help but take a huge whiff.

“I’m unbeatable at this game, you know?” Pidge smiled to herself. “And you’re like, soft. A soft giraffe. I’ll make you cry.”

Lance scoffed. “You haven’t even played it yet.”

“I just know I will be. Even drunk, I could still beat you.”

“I may be rusty, but I can still put up a good fight. I’ve played against Veronica, the world’s most competitive person to ever exist. I’ll show you.”

“Lance?” She swayed against him when she lifted her head, and he loosely held onto her waist to steady her. “You really do wanna play…?”

This close to him, there was no way for him to hide anything in his eyes. And especially not the soft look that he was giving her right now.

“You’re one of my best friends, Pidge. If it makes you happy, absolutely.”

She frowned. “Why?”

“What do you mean why?” he said in exasperation. “I just told you—”

“Why would you want to make me happy, Lance?”

She didn’t really know what she was asking him or why she was asking him that question. But she knew why she wanted Lance to be happy: he wasn’t himself. But she wasn’t anywhere near that melancholic, so what exactly was his reasoning for saying that to her? Somewhere in the back of her mind, she could definitely hear her common sense banging on the door to be let into the house, but there was a small part of her—a piece she’d pushed away deep, deep down—that was hoping for _something_.

“…Because we promised each other we’d play all the games together one day. Why quit with one left?” he muttered, averting his gave from her scrutiny.

“Oh.” She chuckled a bit awkwardly, running a hand through her hair and trying to play it off like nothing, though try as she might, she couldn’t help her disappointment at his response. “I was just kidding, ya know? Don’t worry about—”

“And I like it when you smile. Your real smile.” He rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand and Pidge’s eyes shot to his face in shock. In the low lighting outside, she could see that Lance’s cheeks were flushed a bit red. “Back on the Castle you rarely smiled and you were always smirking or frowning or doing that annoying deadpan thing with your face and you were usually pretty stressed but it was really nice when I did get to see it. And you let me see it whenever we played video games so it was like my private smile that the others didn’t get to see.”

That was probably because that was likely her goofy crush smile.

Even so, that was definitely an unexpected response and she knew her own face burned from how sweet it was. Lance had always been perceptive towards the rest of them, but with how much time he’d spent goofing off, she’d never have expected him to be paying that close attention.

“So you like my smile, huh?” she said playfully, her fingers itching to slid into his soft brown hair.

“You’re cute when you smile.”

She rose a threatening brow. “I get it. Oompa loompa cute, right? I’ve gotten that joke a lot from work mates. Sounds like you need to be kicked again.”

“Not that kind of cute, Pidge.” He rolled his eyes in fatigue. “ _Just_ cute.”

“Oh~ So you think I’m cute, huh?” she said in the same playful tone, and this time, Lance smiled.

“I’ve always thought you were cute,” Lance admitted sincerely with a shrug. “I just never said anything because I thought you might claw my face or something.”

Her heart thumped hard in her chest.

A brief thought drifted in her head as she searched his gaze. A brief stupid thought that it would be nice if he kissed her that she perished as soon as it popped up.

She cleared her throat and leaned back, but the hand anchored to her waist didn’t move. “L-let’s make a toast.”

“A toast to what?”

“A toast to pretty eyes and hair that curls at the end when it grows too long and long fingers and happy trails that need to be hidden away for good because no good can come of it.”

“ _What_?” Lance laughed out loud. “You are so damn drunk. God, I wish I was recording this!”

“C’mon, let’s go play!”

She pulled out of his hold and tried to jump off the couch and grab the game at the same time, but her balance was shot and somehow she misstepped and slid right off the edge of the couch, her feet flying forward. Pidge yelped when she lost her footing, landing on her ass on the ground, her legs sprawled out. Lance was probably splitting his sides with how loud he was laughing, every so often making some comment that he couldn’t breathe. And Pidge made a vow to never get drunk again. She was sick of the embarrassing shit happening.

“Stop laughing already! It’s not that funny!”

Huffing in annoyance, she pulled herself up, despite her uneven balance, snatched up the game and stormed (stumbled, really…) inside the house. Lance followed behind her, still choking with laughter to the point it was echoing around the house, and though she didn’t like people laughing at her expense, Lance’s unabashed, jovial laughter and the honest elation she was feeling from the bond made her lips pull up into a content smile.

It’d been a while since she heard him laugh like that, so it was definitely worth it, even if he probably would never let her forget falling on her bum.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you like new recipes, i highly recommend peppermint (or even peach) schnapps and white tequila (i tend to use patrón), some ice, a bit of tart lemonade (or lemon juice), a bit of honey or agave, and pop it in the blender. serve the slush with fresh mint leaves. play with the ratios as you wish, but be responsible lmao (it's strong af but doesn't taste like liquor)! happy drinking! ★~(^ω^ ✿)
> 
>  
> 
> ~~i’m lowkey a bartender y’all lmao~~


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol i was supposed to post this chapter up a while ago and i completely forgot i had it done because i was stuck on some dialogue in the one after this ^^;; next update i'll go back to my regularly scheduled chunks tho

“So, Katie… Lance tells me you lost every round in Killbot,” Marco said playfully, grunting as he pulled out some more plastic tarps from inside the storage barn. Lance helped to move some of the clutter out of the way. “Way to defend the family honour, bro.”

“I was drunk!” Pidge said indignantly, an embarrassed flush painting her cheeks when Lance eyed her over his shoulder in amusement.

“We can play again. I don’t mind. Although I’d save yourself the trouble since the results will be the same.” The look on Lance’s face made her want to smack him, and when he caught her death glare, he took a subtle step out of her range. “I am The Sharpshooter, after all.”

“Wipe that smug smirk off your face. Rematch _tonight_.”

She didn’t get it. He’d always been a doofy player, so how had he managed to beat her? Even when she’d sobered up some, he’d been one step ahead of her somehow. Pidge was pretty convinced it had been because her coordination was shot though.

“I’d actually appreciate it if you guys didn’t play tonight…” Marco drawled, looking at them both with a raised brow. “You’re too loud. With all the shouting and curses being flung around, I thought you guys were having some raunchy sex in the den. You completely killed my _rhythm_. Couldn’t finish either because well, I was kind of distracted by the free show.”

Lance chucked a mouldy apple core he’d found at his brother. Marco barely dodged it, cackling as he ducked his head, but a soft blast of wind sprayed rain into the storage barn and splashed him in the side. Pidge got hit too, and though she was already wet, it still was unpleasant. Pidge wasn’t a fan of rain. She would have definitely preferred to have an umbrella or rain poncho, but with how actively she had to do work, she needed full range of motion of her limbs and both obstructed that.

This whole storm prep was exhausting work.

Pidge had thought finishing up the most pressing parts of the roofing for the new barn was the bulk of the work for storm preparation, but she’d been wrong. Between stocking and storing up fuel, batteries, feed for the animals, food for them, putting up the pipes for the hoop houses, the tarping, rushing to milk cows and collect eggs from the chickens, etc, Pidge had been running around in the rain since the late afternoon.

It was the last mad rush to make sure they had enough supplies to last one to two weeks in the case of extreme power outages from major lines knocked over or any structural damage. They’d been busting their asses, but with the McClains giving all of their farm hands the day off so they could do preparations with their own families and be safe, it had taken a little longer. Evening had already fallen and the rain was starting to drop more heavily. Pidge’s hair and clothes were already plastered to her head and body, but they still weren’t done yet.

Heavy thunder rumbled in the dark sky, loud and the intensity of the boom made the structure of the barn creak, cutting their conversation short. Lightning lit up the sky far in the distance and Pidge squinted out the barn at it, partially shielding her eyes from the wind spraying rain on her.

In the distance, she could see Luis and Lisa grabbing the chickens with Nadia to bring them back to the house. He called out to the three of them in the distance, telling them to pick up the pace. Pidge was pretty anxious to get whatever needed to be done out of the way so they could go back inside in the safety of the farm house.

“Guys, it’s getting worse,” she said at length. “And I think the lightning is coming in our direction.”

“Shit. We gotta get this up over the crops right now.” Lance yanked the last tarp for the hoop houses out of the corner. He glanced out at the fields with a frown. “Think there’ll be flooding?”

“Maybe a little, but I don’t think it’ll be as bad as last month. It’s not raining heavily enough.” Marco mused, taking half the folded up stack as the three made their way out of the barn. “The wind’s picking up though…”

“Anything else I can do?” Pidge questioned, using her shoulders to put more force to shut the doors. She latched it shut and put the lock in place to prevent the doors from getting yanked open by the wind.

“If any of the barns fall, we can’t have any animals inside,” Lance explained, looking a little worried as he lifted his head to stare at the sky. “Pidge, do you mind moving all the cows out to the pasture? I think my dad already did the horses.”

“That’s not dangerous?”

“They’ll have a chance to run at least which won’t be the case if they’re trapped in a collapsing structure. I don’t think it’ll end up being that intense a storm, but better safe than sorry.”

Pidge knew they were on a time crunch, so she nodded and ran off to the cattle barn to get the cows. She opened all of their stalls and herded them out of the barn before shutting the doors and locking them tight. She took Bella first, feeling she would be the most difficult to deal with. Surprisingly though, she was pretty cooperative. It was like she knew the ropes so she was basically guiding _Pidge_ to the grazing pasture. When Pidge dropped her off, she mooed at her smugly, and Pidge could have sworn Bella was giving her a look of disgust.

(And as dumb as it seemed, Pidge kind of wanted to fight her).

The next cow, Mimi, was also relatively easy, but even though Pidge had anticipated the slow walking of the cow, she was hoping it could go a little faster. Even though Mimi was steadily moving, she was fairly old in her own right too and she was moving incredibly slow. Pidge expected it, considering she also took the longest to milk, but time was not a luxury she could afford at the moment.

By the time she’d gotten Mimi in place and locked in the grazing pasture where the horses and Bella were, the rain had become rather torrential and the already grey sky was further darkened by the downpour. She couldn’t see past the rain that easily, though thankfully the light from the lightpole near her was enough for her to tell the general outline of where she was.

The third cow was pretty spooked by the occasional thunder and each boom would make her stop abruptly and moo in distress. Pidge felt bad for trying to rush her, but there were multiple seconds lost in the process and she still had one more cow.

“Hey, it’s okay, Anamaria…” Pidge cooed softly, grasping her face and whispering reassurances. “Look, we’re just fine. Everything is going to be just fine.”

She took a small step back and then another, holding the cow’s gaze the whole time. And maybe she was silly to think the cow was actually understanding her or something, but to her relief, Anamaria started following her steps. One at a time. Slow and steady. Pidge kept it up the whole way to the field, talking to her and holding the cow’s attention even when a crack of lightning lightened up the sky so brightly for a second, Pidge thought it had been right behind her. Her heart pounded, fingers shaking as she finally got the cow in place and latched the lock on the fence.

Pidge wasn’t afraid of thunderstorms, but she didn’t particularly want to get caught in one outside. Plus, she was soaked to the bone and being pelted by fat raindrops. She wanted a nice hot shower and some soup.

When Pidge ran back to the cattle barn, to her horror, Kaltenecker wasn’t there.

“ _Shit_ …”

She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted Kaltenecker’s name multiple times. The anxious roiling of her stomach increased as Pidge ran around the area of the cattle barn, yelling her name, and her fears grew worse when she didn’t hear any moos in response. Pidge panted for breath, running a hand through her hair and chewing on her lower lip. At Kaltenecker’s speed, she would definitely still be on the farm somewhere, but she wasn’t in this particular area.

“Okay… calm down, Katie…” she muttered to herself. “Regroup. Get a flashlight. Get Kosmo.”

Pidge followed the lightpoles, sprinting back to the house and bursting through the front door to take the steps to the top two at a time. Pidge felt bad about tracking mud and water along the floor, but she had no time to think about that when a cow was lost in this bad weather. She nearly stepped on one of the Lance hens on the landing and almost tripped as she burst into Sylvio’s room like a bat out of hell. Words could not describe the relief she felt at Kosmo still being holed up in her room. He rose up on his paws in alarm when she stopped in front of him.

“Kaltenecker is… lost in the rain,” she said in between heavy pants for breath. “I know you don’t… like getting wet, but… I would really appreciate… your help.”

He gave an affirmative nod, and she rushed back out of her room, Kosmo hot on her heels as she practically flew down the banister. Benita was in the kitchen on a step ladder, pulling out stored cans of food and preserves from some high shelves. Lance’s father was lugging stacks of canned food and water over to the den. Pidge snatched up one of the flashlights left on the kitchen table, flicking it on to test the batteries as she ran back out to the porch.

“Pidge?” she heard Lance call out, and she saw him run by her, a small battery-powered lantern held high in his hand. “Are you still out here?”

“Over here!”

Lance turned and rerouted, heading up the porch steps and frowning. “We need to head inside now. It’s starting to get a little bad.”

“I can’t,” she hastened to explain, shaking the old flashlight until the light went brighter again. “It’s my fault! I-I left the cows outside and Kaltenecker wasn’t tied up and I took too long to move the other cows and Kaltenecker disappeared off somewhere. I need to go find her! I’m scared she’ll get lost in the storm!”

“Fuck. I’ll help you look for her then!” he shouted over the torrent, eyeing the rain with a sgrimace as a small branch from the tree closest to the house broke off and landed in front of the steps. “Where could she have gone?”

“Not far from the barn for sure!”

At least, Pidge hoped.

Lisa and Nadia scrambled up the steps out of the heavy rain, clinging to each other, and stopped on the porch. Shortly after, Luis ran up too, followed by Marco who wiped his face with his hands to get the water off. They were all drenched and panting hard.

“We got everything covered in the fields, right? Chickens all in the house. Everything out of the barns, yeah?” Luis put a hand on Marco and Lisa’s back, trying to urge them to go back inside. “We’re the last ones out here too. Let’s get inside.”

“We can’t. Runaway cow,” Lance explained and Luis let out a ragged groan of distaste. “I’m about to go look with Pidge. We’ll be right back.”

“Uncle Lance!” Nadia cried, her eyes red rimmed and puffy. “We didn’t get a chance to cover the juniberries!”

“Sweetheart, it’s too late for that,” Lisa said gently, hugging a hiccuping Nadia to her side and stroking her hair. “We need to go inside now.”

“But they’ll get torn apart!” Nadia sobbed, grabbing her mother’s arm and shaking it. “Mamá, please! They’re important!”

Lisa gave Lance a pleading look, and he sighed, crouching down in front of Nadia with a small smile.

“Okay. Don’t worry, munchkin.” He cuffed her chin and then wiped the tears from under her eyes. “I’ll go take care of it.”

A huge clap of thunder exploded in the air around them, shaking the house and the ground, and it was followed by a flash of lightning so bright, the entire farm was temporarily illuminated. Pidge jumped at the same time Marco did, Luis cursed in Spanish, and Nadia screamed in fright, latching onto Lance and burying her face in his shoulder.

“Don’t get hurt, okay?” she blubbered.

“Hurt?” He rubbed her back, his mouth turning down in a concerned frown as he glanced at Luis who shrugged. “Nadia… I’ll be okay. The storm won’t hurt me.”

Nadia shook her head, and Pidge belatedly realised she wasn’t scared of the storm causing Lance harm, per se. It was the fear of possibly losing Lance to a hazardous situation out of her control again. She likely felt helpless.

“Nadia, Lance will be fine. I promise,” Pidge said calmly, smiling confidently as she patted Ksomo’s side. Nadia sniffled and lifted her head, looking at Pidge with wide, watery eyes. “Look. You can even keep Kosmo with you. If Lance doesn’t come back in ten minutes, ask Kosmo to go to the juniberry flowers and bring him back, and he’ll do it.”

Kosmo moved to the girl’s side, and she definitely seemed to calm down more. Nadia nodded slowly in agreement, though a small frown still marred her brows and she was pouting the slightest bit. She let go of Lance, and there seemed to be a collective sigh of relief amongst their group.

Pidge was originally going to use Kosmo as some sort of sheep dog, but Nadia clearly needed the comfort more than Pidge would need help for finding Kaltenecker, even if having the wolf would cut her work down a bit.

“If you two are going back out there, get a move on,” Luis said authoritatively, ushering the others to get inside the house. “Be safe and move quickly, okay?”

“Yeah. Lance, I’ll meet you back here when I find Kaltenecker.”

They both started down the porch steps, and Pidge groaned when she was yet again drenched immediately by the waterfall of rain. She made to take off towards the cattle barn, but Lance took her wrist before she could move away.

“Will you be okay looking by yourself?” Lance’s brows were furrowed, an uneasy look in his eyes.

“Yeah. It’s nothing.” A boom of thunder sounded again, and Pidge swallowed hard, hoping Lance couldn’t see her apprehension through the limited light. “It’s just a quick game of hide and seek.”

“If you can’t find her, just don’t worry about it. It’s better than ending up stuck in a storm like this. Don’t go too far from the house either. It’s not worth looking past the cattle barn.”

“You be careful too.”

She shook her flashlight and they split up, Lance heading to their storage barn to get another tarp to protect the flowers while Pidge ran back to the barn.

“Kaltenecker! Where are you?!”

Pidge ran everywhere she could think of in the area, shouting the cow’s name all the while. To the field. Around the barn. Near the chicken coop. She even went out to the farmland to see if maybe Kaltenecker had tried to eat the stuff there or something. No matter where she ran, she couldn’t see her. Pidge didn’t believe Kaltenecker would leave the farm, but she couldn’t think of where else the cow could be headed if she wasn’t near the barn. Pidge ran further down the muddy pathway, past the cattle barns, heading closer to the entrance and beginning her shouting again.

She ran her voice ragged searching, and her stupid flashlight was pretty much dying and she had to shake it multiple times to keep it going. Pidge stopped running around, looking around in worry and unsure what to do. She was soaked to the bone from the rain and uncomfortable from the humidity and the wind whipping around her, and the lightning was freaking her out because she couldn’t pinpoint where it was and that was making her think it was right above her head or something.

There was another violent thunder, accompanied by a bright spark somewhere in the distance outside the farm. There was a crash and next thing Pidge knew, the lights from all the poles went completely out, immersing her in near total darkness. Her flashlight was barely giving off enough light to see around her, and just like that, she was sucked into a dark abyss, stranded in an area she wasn’t altogether too familiar with and not sure which direction was which.

“Lance? Lance, can you hear me?” she shouted, trying to project louder than the rain, but it felt like the rain had swallowed her voice. She didn’t hear anything back in response and she blew out a long breath. She couldn’t even see any kind of glow from the juniberries to give her an idea of the direction to go, so Lance must have gotten them covered up already. “Fuck. Now what?”

Her best bet would be to go back to the farm house and wait out the storm until the morning when everything would be easier to see. But she couldn’t just give up on finding Kaltenecker. She couldn’t just abandon her like that in the storm. With the all-encompassing darkness like this and a shitty flashlight, it wouldn’t be easy though.

A hand landed on her shoulder, tugging her gently sideways and in trying to look for a body associated with the disembodied, invisible hand, Pidge saw it: soft pink floating bubbles lighting up the ground in some sort of pathway to the near distance.

“Allura, holy shit! Thank you!”

The hand squeezed her shoulder once and faded, and Pidge wasn’t sure where it was leading to, but she followed the trail until it took her to the horse’s stable. The door was slightly ajar. Pidge was so confused, but she slipped inside the crack and pulled the door shut again with a grunt, fighting against the wind trying to force it open wider.

Pidge took a cursory glance around the stalls as she shook the flashlight and muddy hoof tracks on the ground took her to the last stall furthest away from the doors where they kept extra disorderly piles of hay to feed the horses. Sure enough, Kaltenecker was slumped in a corner, chewing on a little stack and staring into the distance like she had all the time in the world.

“How in the hell did you end up all the way in here?” Pidge sighed in relief, running over to the cow and hugging her around the neck. “You scared the shit out of me! Do you take pleasure in making your mommy worry? You are in so much trouble, young lady!”

Kaltenecker mooed in total disinterest, licking her own nose and then staring at Pidge without expression. Pidge laughed to herself, gently patting Kaltenecker’s head as she went back to feeding. Then she stood up, stretching her arms and shaking the flashlight again when the light dimmed too much.

Ideally, Pidge would have to take her out to the pastures, but with the way things were, she kind of thought it would be better to just wait in the horse stables. Sure, the thunder was making the foundation shake, and the rain was pelting the roof so hard, she wondered if it would puncture a hole right through it, but Kaltenecker was stubborn as hell, and Pidge knew it would take a herculean effort to get her to move out of the comfort of the stable to the field. She’d have a better chance getting Kaltenecker to speak Spanish to be honest…

Pidge dragged her light along the walls, the roof, the top of each stall until she found a blue overshirt someone had left folded over the side of one of the stalls. It was a little dirty and it kind of smelled like sweat—and wet horse, gross—but it was better than nothing. Pidge slowly peeled off her wet tshirt and shorts, hesitated for a moment and then pulled off her sports bra and panties. Everything was moist and just about sticking to her skin. Plus her hair was starting to frizz up. She wiped at the water and mud as best as she could and pulled on the shirt, buttoning it up. She had to roll up the sleeves three times so at least her fingers weren’t covered up, but it was pretty big on her and fell mid-thigh. The fabric was slightly scratchy on her skin, but at least it was dry.

“I guess we wait out the worst of the storm in here…” Pidge scratched at her upper arm, pacing in front of Kaltenecker with a pensive frown. “I just need to figure out how to let everyone know where I am.”

She’d left every one of her electronics in the house so they wouldn’t get damaged by the water.

“What would you do, Kaltenecker? See if I can try to run to the house from here?” She mooed and Pidge nodded sagely, plopping down on the little pile of hay beside the cow’s body. “Hmm, I see. I’ll stay here and keep you company so you don’t get spooked.”

She just didn’t want to worry anyone, and who knew how much time had passed since she’d begun her search. Pidge wasn’t that great at the paladin bond communication thing, but maybe she’d be able to reach Lance. They’d been spending a lot of time together. It wasn’t that hard to read him anymore, so it wasn’t such a far cry off to believe she could send him a mental image somehow.

She closed her eyes, falling deep into the weird tangle of loops of different connections. There was a very intensely frantic sensation overpowering the other ones, the usually soft, steady energy of the vibe feeling agitated and unnerved. Pidge reached out to Lance’s, tugging on it with her mind and trying her best to project an image of the horse barn somehow. She could only hold the connection for a few more seconds before it faded, and Pidge sighed, leaning her back against Kaltenecker and waiting. She tried to keep her mind as open to the bond as she could, focusing her attention solely on the concern Lance was projecting.

It was annoying when she could feel what everyone felt even uninvited, but at the end of the day, remaining connected with her friends even when they weren’t together was something she was admittedly grateful for.

“This paladin bond comes in handy sometimes…”

She sighed as she settled back in her seat, resolving to try again with the projection if nothing happened in the next few minutes. But a handful of minutes later, the stable doors were suddenly yanked open, inviting the noise of the rain outside and suddenly illuminating the stalls when a crack of lightning shone through the sky.

“Katie!” Lance yelled, sounding out of breath. “Where the fuck are you?!”

“I’m here, Lance.” She stood up and headed out of the stall, her eyes meeting Lance’s where he stood by the door holding up his lantern. The way he sagged in relief, the tension in his body and the anxious gleam in his eyes disappearing in one fell swoop made Pidge feel super guilty. “Allura helped me find Kaltenecker. I was camping out here with her since she doesn’t want to move.”

“You scared the shit out of me!” Lance headed straight to her, but Pidge anticipated his attempt to hug her immediately and planted her hands on his chest, thwarting his attempt and trying to keep him at arm’s length.

“Holy shit, dude! No hugs! You’re soaking wet!”

His hair and clothes were completely plastered to his head and body, and he was dripping an obscene amount of water along the stable ground. There was practically a puddle underneath him.

“Oh right. Sorry…” He chuckled and stepped back, and she had a front row seat to the shift in his expression from amused to surprised to tortured all in a matter of seconds as he took in what she was wearing. “I, uh… wow. Okay.”

“Lance? What’s wrong?”

“Umm… Nothing.” He rubbed the back of his neck, swallowing hard and turning his gaze to the ground. “That’s my shirt, is all.”

“Oh.” Pidge held the front material a bit away from her. She’d been wondering why it smelled a little familiar. “Did you want it back since you’re wet? Although I’m kind of not wearing anything so I need it.”

“Not the problem…” he grumbled as he looked down at the sopping pile of clothes she’d left by the opening of the stall, but Pidge didn’t quite catch his words. “It’s no big deal.”

Another crack of lightning lit up the barn and Kaltenecker mooed uneasily. Lance reached up and hung the lantern from one of the small hooks on one of the lower rafter beams, and then grabbed both handles of the stable doors, wrenching them closed against the wind with so much force the muscles in his forearms rippled. It took Kaltenecker mooing again for Pidge to hurry back to her pile of hay to console her, though she’d definitely been distracted staring at Lance.

She knew he was a lot stronger, but fucking hell…

“Hey, we’re safe in here, sweetie,” Pidge murmured, rubbing Kaltenecker’s neck behind her ears. The cow didn’t moo again, so Pidge wanted to believe she’d helped her settle down a bit. “Don’t worry your pretty little head. We won’t let anything happen to you.”

Lance grabbed a water bucket by the disconnected hose in the corner and moved it close to the opening of the stall in the aisle, squinting his eyes up at the roof. A small stream of water had started dripping and when he found its dropping point, he set the bucket there.

“This is the absolute worst place to be trapped during a storm…” Lance muttered, rounding the corner into the stall. He tested the sturdiness of the wood by knocking his hand against the walls and the rafters closest to them above their heads. “I don’t think this place can withstand the pressure if it gets any windier than this. Plus there are a shit ton of trees in this area and if any one of them gets knocked over, the roof is definitely getting crushed.”

Pidge quickly covered Kaltenecker’s ears with her hands as she glared at him over her shoulder. “Hey! I’m trying to keep her from freaking out here!”

Hell, she was trying to keep _herself_ from freaking out.

“Sorry,” he said unapologetically as he plopped down on the hay beside her. He winced from the sharpness of the straw and fidgeted, trying to find a more comfortable position. “My family knows I came here for you, but this is just not the ideal place to be stranded. At least you’re safe…”

“Aww, that’s sweet.” Pidge rotated in her place so she was facing him. “You were totally scared for me.”

A wry smile tainted his expression. “I mean, it’s a hurricane and you’re small. Thought the wind would pick you up and carry you away.”

Pidge’s grin was all teeth. And then she punched him in the arm.

“Okay… that’s deserved.” Lance rubbed at his bicep, but that nasty smirk was still on his lips. And she realised the reason she felt his agitation through the bond was because he was annoyed with _her_ for some reason. “Although that’s what you get for making us all worry about you.”

What the hell had she even done?

“Ass,” Pidge groused, reaching beside her and gently stroking Kaltenecker. She’d since stopped munching on hay and her eyes were closed, seemingly taking a nap. “I told you I was trying to find our cow. It’s not my fault she wandered off somewhere. Chill out.”

“Hurricanes are no joke, Pidge,” Lance responded, a vexed frown on his face as he turned to her. “Even small storms can cause major damage and branches always fall and fly everywhere. If you were in the wrong place at the wrong time and couldn’t see anything, you wouldn’t have been able to dodge if a branch fell on you. Or even worse: a snapped power line!”

“What the fuck was I supposed to do? I was going to go back to the house, but the power went out while I was trying to look for her!”

“You shouldn’t have strayed that far from the house in the first place! I told you not to, so why did you end up all the way out here? Push comes to shove, animals have better instincts than humans. Kaltenecker would have been fine!”

“Well, gosh golly, _excuse_ _me_ for actually giving a damn about our cow!”

“ _For fuck’s sake_ , Katie! I love Kaltenecker too—you know I do—but _your_ life is not worth losing over looking for a damn cow! Shut the hell up and _listen_ to me!” Lance shouted, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her a bit. Kaltenecker lifted her head, sleepy eyes opening halfway as she stared at them. “I caught an abrupt glimpse of the bond from you and you were all anxious and then it dimmed entirely! I called out your name so many times and you never responded! Do you not understand how that made me feel?! I was fucking terrified thinking you were out cold somewhere! I thought you’d gotten seriously hurt!”

His voice reverberated around the stable and for several long seconds, they stared at each other, Lance’s pained expression showing her just how horrified he’d been by her total silence. Pidge blinked at him wide eyed, her heartbeat thundering in her ears so strongly it drowned out the loud rumbling of thunder outside.

“I— Lance… I’m sorry…” she finally said, still entirely shocked as she searched his gaze. His frantic emotions had been so intense, but she hadn’t realised this was the reason why. “I didn’t mean— I wasn’t trying to… I’m sorry, okay?”

Lance sighed, his furious gaze softening as he let go of her and rubbed his face with his hands, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees.

“It’s… it’s fine. The important thing is you’re safe.”

Pidge wrung her hands for a moment, chewing on her lower lip and feeling chastised. “…Thank you for coming for me. You didn’t have to, especially with the weather this bad.”

He looked at her over his shoulder, lips twitching up into a partial smile. “Yes I did. I wouldn’t be able to rest easy if I couldn’t make sure you were okay.”

Pidge’s cheeks flushed a bit. She shifted and slid forward so she was wedged up beside him and leaned over to rest her head on his shoulder. Water from the ends of his hair and shirt dampened her face, and he’d gotten the part of the hay around him moist too, but she didn’t care.

“Thank you for your concern. It’s appreciated, you know?” She hummed playfully when he reached up and patted her cheek in a way she knew meant he forgave her. “Although… if you tell me to shut up again, Lance, I’m not kidding. I’m going to hit you in the face.”

“That’s how I woo the ladies, Pidge. A Casanova’s face is his life. You’d really ruin mine like that?”

“I think black eyes make guys look rugged,” she responded, partially joking, sitting back a little on the little indentation she’d made for her bum and kicking her legs out to cross at the ankle. The straw was sticking into parts of her legs, but what could she do. Better hay than the floor. “It’s sexy.”

He snorted, taking the end of his shirt and wringing it hard to get some of the water out. But Pidge’s gaze was on the marks on his face, curious how people responded to it. A lot of people knew about Voltron who were in a certain sphere, but most didn’t and she was sure Lance didn’t go around explaining everything behind his marks to everyone. How had the people in his community here responded when he’d come back around, sporting two crescent marks that glowed?

“Hey, if you have kids, are they going to be half Altean or something? With the marks?”

“I’m not Altean, Pidge.” He laid back carefully on the hay, his hands resting behind his head as he stared at the ceiling. His hair was drying unevenly, so some parts were clumped up and others were frizzing up too. Pidge didn’t even want to think about what her rat’s nest looked like. “Just a guy from Cuba.”

Pidge reached out and traced the mark on his left cheek. “Has dating been awkward for you with these?”

“I don’t date.”

She rolled her eyes. “Screwing, whatever. Like, do people not think it’s weird?”

The smile curving up his lips was downright filthy.

“Most people don’t tend to care about details like that when your tongue is in their—”

“ _Lance_.” She growled, snapping her hand away from his face. “What the hell!”

“Mouth. I was going to say mouth.” He laughed. “Get your mind out of the gutter.”

She eyed him in annoyance. “I was being serious here!”

“Like I said, they don’t really care,” Lance answered with a shrug, his gaze on the ceiling as he pondered the question. “I mean, some people ask what it is and I just tell them they’re tattoos. There was one time though, right after we moved back here, that someone asked how Allura gave me her marks. I was kind of shocked she pretty much knew about everything. Apparently she kept up with all the news from your mom’s broadcasts and everything during Sendak’s attack.”

“Was she understanding?”

“Yeah. That’s probably why I ended up hooking up with her more than once. She didn’t really care that I was coming out of a relationship I never got closure from. But then at some point, she wanted to date, and I felt bad, but I had no interest.”

Pidge picked up some stray straw, twirling it in her fingertips. “Think you’ll ever date again?”

“Not anytime soon…” Lance gave her a weird look. “Why?”

“Marco thinks you’re ready for love.” She elected to leave out the part where he’d mentioned her being the primary candidate. That wasn’t happening. “That you’re ready to move on in general from everything. Including life here.”

Lance didn’t immediately respond, a crease between his brows as he stared at her. The rain outside hit the barn heavily, the sound like a roaring waterfall interspersed with the loud rumbles of thunder.

“…I got a similar talk from Luis when we got back from Luz’s farm yesterday. Your doing?”

“Believe it or not, I’m not the only one who’s wanted to push you to get your life together, Lance,” she drawled. “I’m just the only one who’s willing to kick your ass over it.”

He snorted, his eyes drifting over to Kaltenecker’s tail when it started swishing around. “And I’m grateful for it, I promise, but you’ve gotta let me do this at my own pace.”

She wiggled her toes, her face twisting a bit, but she didn’t say anything. Normally, she would agree that giving Lance all the time he would need would be for the best, but Lance had lost a lot of his gungho behaviour and enthusiasm. If she left him to his own devices, she didn’t think he’d make as big an effort as any of them would like.

“What about you? Are you dating? You know, outside of those hookups.”

“Not anymore.” She shook her head as she picked at a fray of the strand in her hand and peeled it off. “I’m not really looking for a relationship right now. But if I do start again, I need someone who can keep up with me and my lifestyle. I work a lot. They’ll need to be understanding.”

“Don’t tell me you dated someone who had an issue with your work schedule?”

“Lots of them did.”

“Seriously?” He shook his head. “Who complains about getting to date the person who’s going to cure Purple Flu?”

Pidge chuckled to herself, peeling off another frayed bit and dangling it over Lance’s nose, just barely brushing him. He swatted it away absentmindedly.

“To be fair,” she said, dropping her piece of straw on his stomach, and then picking up another one and doing it again, “they didn’t know exactly what I meant when I told them I work a lot. Most people think a lot is like a little bit of overtime here and there. Someone I was with once didn’t see me for a month straight because I kept having to blow him off for work.”

“Wow. That’s bad.” Lance had an incredulous look on his face. “You have to make time too though, Pidge. You don’t have to prioritise your relationship, but if you don’t make an effort at all, it won’t work out.”

“Yeah, I figured that out eventually.” She started to pull her knees up to her chest, but remembered at the last minute that she had on no panties and quickly forced her legs down before she had a crack-ccident. “But I was never serious about them anyway, so it didn’t matter to me that much.”

A heavy burst of thunder suddenly banged outside the barn, and the foundation shook from the force, the wood creaking ominously. They both jumped, Kaltenecker waking up immediately and mooing loudly in fright. They both shot up and moved closer to her, patting and rubbing her back in soothing motions to help her calm down.

“Do you think the storm’s getting any better? I’m worried about the other animals out in the field.”

“I can’t tell…” Lance looked concerned too. “The pastures aren’t surrounded by trees though, so at least they have room to move accordingly. Veronica’s horse jumps fences though. We’ll probably have to find him in the morning. But I’m not really worried about our farm. At the end of the day, we have able bodied people helping us to manage stuff.”

“Luz, huh?”

“Yeah.” Lance dropped a little kiss on Kaltenecker’s side when she finally rested her head back down and closed her eyes. “We did the best we could to help them get ready, but I can’t help but worry.”

“They’ll be okay. You guys did an incredible job to make sure they’re safe and prepared.” Pidge settled back again onto the hay, though she stayed leaning against Kaltenecker just in case she got spooked again. Lance mirrored her position, keeping an arm draped over their cow’s back. “And even if the storm leaves some destruction in its wake, we’ll step up again to help them out.”

“True.”

“Are the pigs going to be okay?” She was worried about Mr. Oinkers and the other babies. They weren’t that many days old and if there was any flooding, they might end up drowning in a puddle or something. “How bad does the wind have to be to pick up a baby and carry them away?”

“The babies are kept in the house,” Lance explained, assuaging her fears. “If they had more room, they’d put the adults in there too, but they usually open up the pen and let them roam free as they need too. We’ll likely have to find them in the morning too.”

“Keeping animals is a lot of work…” Pidge mused, stroking Kaltenecker’s neck when her ears twitched after another rolling boom of thunder.

“Especially when they get ill. And in our area of the farms, it’s only me and two other people who have certified first aid training for animals so when there’s a flu going around, we’re stretched thin.”

That was news to her. “Wait, so you’re like a certified paramedic for animals?”

“Yeah. Pretty much.” Lance’s lips pulled up in a crooked smile, and he looked proud of himself. “I figured if I’m going to be indefinitely on the farm, it would be a good idea to do something constructive with my time.”

“Holy crap! That’s really cool, Lance!” Pidge grinned at him, seriously impressed. “Did you get your certification this year?”

“Uh, no. It was the year we moved back to Cuba.”

Her smile slipped slowly, irritation taking root as she narrowed her eyes at him. “…So you’ve been certified for two years.”

“…Yes?” He stared at her uneasily. “Sensing a little hostility there, Pidge.”

“You’re telling me that you’ve been certified for _two_ whole years, _two_ years in which we all met up and talked about our lives and you never once thought to inform us of this monumental event in your life?”

He winced a bit and averted his gaze to somewhere behind her shoulder. “Pidge, look—”

“Oh no you don’t. No excuses. We are _so_ doing this now.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest, angrily tapping her finger on her arm until he returned his attention to her again. “I’ve been pretty chill about your bullshit, waiting for a better time to bring it back up, but you tested my patience past its limits. What is it with you and keeping stuff about you from us?!”

“I just— I didn’t think it was—”

“If the words important or necessary or interesting come out of your mouth next, I’m going to clobber you, Lance,” she growled.

He gave her a blank look. “I was going to say it wasn’t a big deal. Besides, it’s kind of a temporary side thing. I don’t really know if I see it as part of my future, you know?”

What the hell was wrong with him?

Pidge had to take a deep breath and let it out slowly to cool her temper. “My instinct is telling me to yell at you because you are such an utter moron I can’t believe it, but I’m gonna try a different approach.”

“Thanks for your consideration…” Lance intoned sarcastically, and she shot him a nasty look. “What?”

“What exactly _do_ you see for your future? Because when we were at Luz’s, you said some pretty weird shit. And the feelings you were projecting were just odd. Tell me the truth.”

“You don’t want to hear it.”

“Yes I do, Lance!” Pidge said emphatically. “We _all_ do. We want to know what’s going on with you, where your head is at, how you’re managing, but if you keep all of it to yourself, how are we supposed to help you out? Open up to me like you used to, dammit! I’m not going anywhere so either start talking or I’ll… I’ll bury you in hay!”

Lance’s brows were a bit high on his forehead at her outburst and then he snorted and started chuckling.

“It’s not funny!” She rose up to her knees and grabbed a large armful, ready to dump on him, glowering at him threateningly. “I mean it!”

“Alright, alright. Yeesh…” He waited until she was seated again, her legs tucked under her, and as his expression sobered, she noted the odd feeling through the bond was the same one from when they’d been by the pig pen. “Just don’t blow up on me, okay? You’re not going to like this.”

“I’ll try not to,” she conceded, though just from his uneasy expression, she knew that was a tall order.

“The thing is… we were all in such dangerous situations for so long that I never really _saw_ a future when we were in space, “Lance explained slowly, gauging her reaction as he spoke. “Sure, I imagined certain things as being part of my future—like having a family—but I never actually thought I’d _live_ through the war. Or rather, I always figured I’d end up going after sacrificing myself for one of you guys. I kind of… resolved myself to make that happen.”

Pidge tried her best to keep her expression as neutral as possible, but with every one of his words, something in her chest tightened and she started to feel like she was about to explode. The hand on her lap curled into a fist and she took short, shallow breaths to keep her temper at bay.

“I went into our final battle prepared to die. When that didn’t happen, I felt like my purpose to die for you guys had been extinguished. And then I kept expecting—kind of hoping—for another galaxy war to pop up any second, another place to defend, another people to defend at the possible cost of my life. But everything has been calm for three years and it feels _weird_. That’s why I said the possible future is not what I expected.” He shrugged, running his fingers gently along Kaltenecker. “And then being with Allura was like a ray of sunshine giving me a purpose for the future—being her devoted boyfriend—but then she died, and now I’m still kind of shaky on the future thing since I didn’t plan because it was me that wasn’t supposed to make it—”

“You almost didn’t though,” Pidge interrupted brusquely, having had absolutely enough of his crap.

Lance blinked at her.

“Are you an idiot?!” Pidge yelled, her throat feeling like a frog was lodged in there. “You _did_ die, Lance, and if Allura hadn’t brought you back to life you would definitely be dead right now! You got a second chance! What the fuck are you doing still thinking this disgusting crap?”

“You said you wouldn’t blow up on me…” he said dryly, a humourless smile gracing his lips as he idly stroked Kaltenecker’s back.

“Who could listen to that mess and not react like this?! You’re an ass for thinking that way about yourself. And you’re an ass for not telling us you’d died!”

“You can’t pretend you don’t know where I’m coming from,” Lance argued, a brow raising. “We all probably thought it at some point.”

“At some point! Not _the entire time_! And I’m super pissed about you not telling us you’d died. What would you do if you found out offhand that something huge like that happened to one of your best friends and they didn’t tell you? Why didn’t you tell us?!”

“I’m sorry, okay?” Lance muttered, his eyes gleaming with remorse as he stared at the hay between them. ‘But that’s how I felt. I really didn’t think it was something that needed to be said.”

“ _Why_? Were we not important enough to know?”

“Other way around, Pidge,” Lance said seriously, and Pidge stilled, her stomach dropping to her feet. He didn’t think _he_ was important. “Honestly, I figured if any one of us shouldn’t make it to the end, it made sense to be me. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, you guys had more to offer, so I had no problems sacrificing myself for you all.”

And that was all she could stomach.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” Pidge snatched his collar in her hands and jerked him forward. It felt like someone was squeezing her heart in her chest. “If I ever hear you say something like that again, I’m kicking your ass to next year, Lance!”

“Pidge—”

“How many _fucking_ times do I have to tell you that your _fucking_ worth is not defined by your _fucking_ relationship with Allura until it gets through that thick _fucking_ skull of yours?!”

He opened his mouth to respond, looking affronted, but Pidge refused to let him make another excuse.

“Don’t lie to me! That’s exactly why you started acting foolishly self-sacrificial!” she shouted, startling Kaltenecker, who jolted awake. Pidge felt so sick she wanted to vomit. She could practically feel the bile at the base of her throat. “You were always trying to prove yourself to her and for some reason, you deluded yourself into believing you had to endanger your own life to be worthy of a relationship with her. She may have been a princess, but you’re not a fucking knight, Lance! Your purpose in Voltron—in our lives—was not to be a damn human shield. No one asked for that! You had so much more to offer, and it hurts so bad that you thought you didn’t matter unless Allura recognised your valour.”

The storm raged on outside, claps of thunder still resounding outside and making the stable shake. The water dripping from the ceiling plopped at a slightly faster rate.

“Do you not see how much we all love you?! How much your family freaking loves you?” She gripped his collar tighter, her voice breaking as her eyes burned in the back. “I’ve been here for a week and I can see plain as day the intense love they have for you. Losing you would have _destroyed_ them. You never thought of that every time you did this to yourself?!”

“Katie…” Lance brought his hands up to cradle her face and wiped some tears she hadn’t even realised had been falling from her eyes. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Please don’t cry.”

How could she not?

Her heart was breaking for him. None of them had come out of the Voltron experience without some damage in some way or another, but Lance was beyond messed up and it hurt her so much. He’d always been so happy and cheerful and goofy and then they’d gone to space and it royally screwed up the way he used to think. All over a relationship.

“It would have destroyed us to lose you too! When Rover blew you up, we were so scared you’d actually die. I couldn’t even rebuild him in all these years—a robot I loved so much—because I could only associate him with that horrifying day Sendak attacked and you got so hurt. You matter to us! You have to know that. _Please_ tell me you know that.”

“I do know that.” Lance gently peeled her hands off his collar and held them in his, giving her a small smile and squeezing them. “I can’t lie it’s hard to break old thought patterns, but I do know it.”

Pidge sniffled, glowering at him. “It’s not even about that, Lance. All those years working together, all of us being together, trusting each other. How did it even get that bad?”

“Because it started out as something small. I only wanted to protect you guys because you guys were all I really had in space. Closest thing to my family back home. And then Lotor happened, and I got caught up in my envy, but to be fair, I was just a dumb teen back then.” He grimaced, giving her a sheepish look. “I guess I just always held him as _the_ high standard. He swooped in and effortlessly won Allura’s heart and he was unbelievably strong and an amazing pilot and swordsman—I mean, he was a legitimate, goddamn prince—and he was everything I’d desperately dreamed of being and so it just— I never felt I could measure up. Like I wasn’t good enough for Allura if I was myself. And by extension, you guys too.”

“You’re more than enough, Lance. You _always_ have been and if your head wasn’t so far up her arse, you would have seen that.”

“That’s not a good metaphor, Pidge.” His lips quirked up in a playful little smile and try as she might, she couldn’t stop her own lips from starting to curl up.

“Stop it! I don’t care! It’s _heartbreaking_ , Lance. I know you’re grateful for the good life you’ve led, but I can’t believe you could never see how much you meant to us. To _me_.”

“Okay, okay. Point made.” Lance chuckled to himself as he stared down at their conjoined hands, slowly rubbing the top of her hands with his thumb. “You’re making me feel like you’re about to dropkick me on the head or something.”

“I might if you keep spewing that bullshit.”

Lance smiled at her, his eyes dancing in the dimmed light from the lantern. “…What did I do to deserve a Pidge like you?”

“ _Seriously_.” Pidge took her hands out of his and set them on his shoulders, rising up on her knees and scootching forward so their gazes were level. “Every time you say stuff like that I want to throw up. Promise me you’ll never say anything that disparaging about yourself again. At least for me. But definitely for yourself.”

“I promise,” he responded softly, steadily holding her gaze. “At least for you. But definitely for myself.”

“You mean it?”

“I absolutely do.”

And he truly did. She got the sense from the bond that he was really making an effort to change the way he saw himself. To seek and find his value outside of his prior relationship. To build up his self-worth again, the way he should have built it up for himself.

And it made her so happy, her heart lurched in her chest, tears pooling on her eyelids again.

Pidge pounced on him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders in a hug, and he yelped, completely unprepared for her body weight colliding into him. The momentum toppled him over as they went tumbling down onto the large pile of hay. They rolled down the pile, Pidge yelping from the pain of each sharp straw digging into her sides and arms, and they ended up crashing onto the concrete ground, Lance cushioning her fall. He let out a pained groan, and Pidge pulled up a bit on her forearms with a wince, surprised that he’d lost his balance in the first place.

“Ow…” he wheezed, cringing as he patted her back. “What the fuck, Pidge. Why is it that since you’ve arrived, I’ve been physically harmed more times than in the past three years?”

Pidge couldn’t look at his face.

It was twisted in some odd mix of pain and shock that made him look like he wanted to sneeze, and there was no way she could keep a straight face in a situation like that.

Pidge cracked up hard, snorting intermittently, and dropped her forehead back on his shoulder, clutching his shirt as she tried to reel it in. It was just so stupid coming out of a bad argument and reconciling only to end up sprawled on the floor from a badly timed hug.

“Well… glad _someone’s_ finding some amusement in this situation,” Lance muttered under his breath, gently resting his hands on her back. “Because I’m pretty sure you broke my damn back.”

“We’re a mess…” She gasped for breath in between her peels of laughter, hiccupping and rubbing her nose on Lance’s shirt to wipe the snot off. “Holy shit, we are such a fucking mess…”

“That we are…”

And Kaltenecker lifted her head and mooed at them crankily.


End file.
